Between Paris, the Olympic games and I

I am in London, hopefully on my way, in the next few days, to Paris, the host city of the 2024 Olympiad. I am very excited about visiting Paris again after two previous experiences that are significant chapters in my life.

Forty-eight years ago, my flight to my first Olympic Games experience started in a city people used to say, in those days, was so beautiful and romantic that after seeing Paris, you can die happily!

It happened in the month of June. I was only a few weeks away from graduating from The Polytechnic, Ibadan. Through the Oyo State Sports Council, the National Sports Commission contacted the office of the Rector of The Polytechnic, seeking my release to come to Lagos and proceed immediately to join the national football team, the Green Eagles, that were on tour of Europe preparing for the 1976 Olympic Games.

Coming completely from the blue, it may be the most pleasant shock of my life. It was a quantum leap into uncharted frontiers of fate and fame. The Olympics were for gods, yet here was I, from nowhere, about to become one!

I had to submit an incomplete final project to my supervisor in the Mechanical Engineering department with the offer to return and defend the project after the national assignment. It was a most unusual situation for everyone.

Meanwhile, the list of Nigeria’s contingent was with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and had been released to the public. A scintillating performance by me in the quarter-final of that year’s Africa Cup Winners Cup for Shooting Stars FC at the National Stadium, Lagos, made Dr. Isaac Akioye, Director of the National Sports Commission (NSC) in charge of Nigerian sports, to send an urgent request to the IOC to replace the name of an already registered player