| Ominous Olympics 08 |
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| Written by Sonala Olumhense | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 08 June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Ominous Olympics 08 By Sonala Olumhense In exactly two months, 08-08-08 on the calendar, the Olympics will again take centre state. China will host the world for two weeks to determine the best of the world's best athletes.
Will Nigeria be there? Maybe not. For the sake of the Nigerian athlete, I hope to see our national flag hosted in Beijing alongside the flags of other nations. Once upon a time, Nigeria was an emerging sports nation. Given the sheer size and diversity of our country, we were expected to be able to produce a variety of athletes that could match any in the world. Within Africa, it was thought that we would assume pre-eminence, and stay that way. We participated in our first Olympics in 1952, and have been at every one of them since then, apart from the 1976 event in Canada which we boycotted. We have won 19 medals so far, 11 of them in athletics and six in boxing. In 1996, we won a famous gold medal in football, Africa's first in that coveted event. The second of our two gold medals was also won in that year by long jumper Chioma Ajunwa. For a while, Nigeria looked promising in the sprints, sometimes putting two men in the highly-coveted finals. Sometimes, in those events at least, we offered the impression that we were ready to challenge the traditional powers. But 19 medals in 12 attempts are a dismal haul for a nation with the size and resources of Nigeria, as is the fact that we have had only two gold medals in over half a century of work. It is also disconcerting that no Nigerian male has ever brought home an individual gold medal. Ethiopia picked up eight medals in the 2000 Games alone, four of them being gold, when our total was three, all of them silver. And 19 medals are what Spain picked up at the 2004 Games alone; we slipped down to two dismal bronze medals. It is not that the Nigerian athlete has ever stopped trying. On the contrary, our athletes work very hard. Nigeria is simply not a country that respects merit, intellectual or athletic. As a result of this attitude, it is not surprising to see men and women of ideas, like men and women of athletic gift, ignored until they strike gold on their own. What does glory at the Olympics take? Simple: invest in the athlete, as well as in the infrastructure and the organization he needs for training and competition, and get out of the way. This is what the successful nations do every year. Every four years at the Olympics, their best athletes reward them with excellent and inspiring performances, and they do not have difficulty locating themselves in the news, or on the medals table. On the contrary, Nigeria does not prepare for the Olympics; we go to the Olympics. Without the benefit of any sustained programme of preparation, government officials pronounce wild medal expectations as if they give away the medals indolence. We ignore our sportsmen and coaches for four years, only to remember them on the eve of the Olympics. For half a century, we have arrogantly ignored the point that budgeting for the Olympic Games is not the same as preparing for the Games. This year, we seem to be in even worse condition, unsure whether we are even going to China or not. Last month, the Minister for Sports requested President Umaru Yar'Adua to embark on the unprecedented scandal of withdrawing from the Games. Apparently, the Minister has no confidence that in Beijing we can even equal our 2004 haul of two bronze medals; four years of apathy are about to collapse on his head. Where, meanwhile, is the rest of the world? One of the enduring images from the 2004 Olympics is of a former Nigerian sprinter winning the silver in the men's coveted 100 metres...for Spain. He will not be the only Nigerian competing against Nigerians in Beijing. Our former hurdling sensation, Josephine Onyia, has followed her friend and also former Nigeria champion, Glory Alozie, into the Spanish team. Last month, Ms. Onyia defeated both the World Indoor record holder and the World Indoor champion on her way to setting a new Spanish record. She is on her way to Beijing where she vows to win a medal for Spain. I do not see Beijing-bound Nigerians turning up in those top competitions, or speaking with as much confidence. Where is the rest of the world? Jamaica's Usain Bolt, a 200 metres specialist, has just set the new world record in the 100 metres. He thus joins compatriot Asafa Powell at the top of the men's event going into the Olympics. He is the latest major Jamaican announcement of that nation's readiness to upstage even the United States in both the men's and women's sprints. What must be of interest to Nigeria is how Jamaica is able to groom world-beaters on its own soil. The potent programmes of nations such as Jamaica are going on while we consistently punch well below our weight. The same problems that held us down 20 years ago are still in place, making us look old and clumsy, chasing our talent into the arms of others. We have to avoid the practice where, at the end of every Olympics, we substitute recrimination for planning and preparation. This was what we did four years ago. And four years before that. If the Sports Minister is interested in a respectable legacy, here is where he can make a fundamental difference. Let him send our athletes to Beijing as motivated warriors; they have earned their opportunity. That does not mean they are as prepared as they could have been. One thing was obvious at the 16th African Athletics Championships in Addis Ababa a few weeks ago: not only are several African countries now miles ahead of us, we are slipping in the other direction. The challenge, therefore, remains what it has been for a long time: to establish, immediately, a plan that permits the training of our athletes the entire year, not just for purposes of imminent competition. Only a strong structure that does not depend on the whims of changing governments and their civil service club boys can foster the emergence of the best. Sport is where merit makes its case in front of thousands of people, and video cameras. The paradox is that most of our sportsmen will always rise from among the least privileged; children of the rich have no stomach for the sweat and the discipline necessary to seek the glory of Olympic-type fame. This is also where Nigeria, where we resent the poor and hate the thought that they may aspire to be any different, has a major problem. Unless we can find a way to throw the door open to all who dare, and invest in the nurturing of their talent, we will never truly enjoy the Olympic motto of "Faster, Higher, Stronger". Each Games will bring us renewed humiliation and acrimony. We are two months and two weeks away from our athletes returning from the 2008 Olympics. We can do the right thing, today, and start serious preparations for 2012.
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Posted by Robot| 08.06.2008 08:27