Rinse and repeat: Nigeria awaits Los Angeles Olympics after Paris’ N9b, poor outing

Complicit administration, dearth of effective sports federations, failure to invest in athletes’ development, and prioritise the implementation of the National Sports Policy; failure to stop wholesale participation in all the sporting events, and concentrate on those that the country has a comparative advantage in, are part of the legion of demons that are afflicting the country’s sports development. The just-concluded Olympic Games in Paris, France, provided a spectacular opportunity for the country to show how it has failed to learn from past experiences. Apart from the outcome of the sporting ensemble making jest of the Federal Government’s boast that Paris 2024 would show how well the country’s sports has grown in the last couple of years, CHRISTIAN OKPARA reports that the anti-climax has rather shown that it is time Nigeria changed her approach to preparing for and competing in major international championships. It’s Los Angeles’ turn for the torch in 2028. Will Nigeria change its course?

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games was supposed to witness Nigeria’s best performance since the 1996 edition, where the country won two gold medals and a few silver and bronze medals.
 
The Sports Minister, John Owan Enoh, was so sure of the quality of work his ministry and its associate federations had done on the country’s team that he promised the country a fantastic outing in France.
 
Buoyed by the assurances and desire to see the best of the country on the biggest sporting canvas in the world, President Bola Tinubu gave the team over N9 billion on the eve of the Games. Not to be left behind, members of the House of Representatives collectively donated N100 million to boost Team Nigeria’s campaign at the Games.
 
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