Team Nigeria arrives in Abuja, ends Olympics with two medals

Nigeria’s contingent to the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games was welcomed back to the country yesterday as the team arrived at the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport Abuja.

Team Nigeria took part in their last Olympic event on Friday and currently sit 74 on the medals table having won a silver and bronze medal.

Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, while thanking the athletes for representing the country assured that early preparations will commence for the Commonwealth Games.

With silver and a bronze medal at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Nigeria improved on their 2016 performance in Rio where they won just a bronze medal (in football). But as the multi-sports event wraps up on Sunday (today), the fight for who wins the Games between China and the USA goes to the wire.

Despite an improved medal count from the West African nation, the embarrassment that engulfed the country at the Games will still be a topic of discussion for years to come.

Ten out of 23 of the country’s athletes in the track and field event were disqualified from the Games after having failed to meet the minimum testing requirements under Rule 15 of the Anti-Doping Rules which states that athletes must have completed three out of competition doping tests six months before the Olympics.

The 10 athletes showed their grievances by protesting their disqualification with some of the athletes on social media pointing fingers at the discord in the nation’s athletics body as the main reason why they failed to get the minimum required out of competition tests.

As if that was not enough, the country’s top medal hopeful in the women’s 100 and 200 metres event, Blessing Okagbare was provisionally suspended for doping by the Athletics Integrity Unit.

Okagbare tested positive for human growth hormone in an out-of-competition test on July 19, four days before the Olympics opened.

The results of that test were received by track and field’s anti-doping body a day after Okagbare, had won her 100m heat in 11.05seconds to qualify for the semi-finals of women’s at the Olympics but her disqualification meant she could no longer continue with the competition.

Disappointment continued for Team Nigeria in the 100m men’s final as Enoch Adegoke pulled his hamstring despite having a good start failing to finish the sprint.

Things took a turn for good for Nigeria as medal hopeful, Ese Brume, rewarded the country’s faith in her by winning a bronze medal in the women’s long jump event followed by Blessing Oborududu who won a silver medal in wrestling after losing to America’s Tamyra Mensah-Stock in the final. The medal for Oborududu is the first for the country in wrestling since the sport made its Olympics appearance for the country in 1980.

After Oborududu’s success, medal hopefuls Odunayo Adekuoroye and Aminat Adeniyi failed in their bids to win a medal for the country as they both lost in the round of 16 of their events leaving the country to settle for just two medals.

Going into the final day of the Games, Nigeria sits 74th on the medals table.

With more gold medals at stake in the final day of events – water Polo, volleyball, boxing, women’s basketball, cycling, rhythmic gymnastics, handball and athletics the United States will be hoping to overthrow China as the competition’s overall medal winners.

China are currently first on the table with 38 gold, 31 silver and 18 bronze medals while The US are second with 36 gold, 39 silver and 33 bronze medals.