Team Nigeria on Saturday afternoon got more bad news as one of Nigeria’s best medal prospects, Divine Oduduru, was disqualified from the 100m due to a false start.
Evidence from a replay showed America’s Fred Kerley had made a movement before the gun, but Oduduru was disqualified, starting from Lane 2.
On Saturday, Team Nigeria woke up to the news that 100m women medal hopeful Blessing Okagbare had been handed a ban from the Olympics because of a failed drug test.
So far since the Olympics games started, there has been one terrible news after the other ranging from the welfare of athletes and poor management by the Ministry of Sports.
Recently, an anonymous source told the punch newspaper that: “This kits issue is a big embarrassment to Nigeria, till now, we have not been able to finalize on our kits. Plans are in top gear to send kits down to Tokyo, but I can assure you that the athletes won’t use PUMA,”
“Even when we gave the athletes kits for a visit to the Villa, some of them decided not to wear them. Are you going to flog them? If you look at the pictures at the Villa, you will notice that some of them were not wearing their kits; they left them on the bus. The day they were departing for Tokyo, they gave everyone kits to wear, but some of them didn’t wear them,” Joshua-Akanji said as he shifted the blame on the athletes saying the decision to wear their kit was on them.
Nigeria has been attending the Olympic Games since 1952 but has only 25 medals to show; the medals comprise three gold medals, ten silver medals, and 12 bronze medals.
This piece will take us through the 16 medal expeditions, for which the country has sent 722 male and female athletes.
Nigeria recorded a golden moment that came at the 1996 Games held in Atlanta, USA. Team Nigeria won an unprecedented two gold medals, one silver and three bronze medals.
One of Nigeria’s worst moments in the history of the Olympics was in Seoul in 1988. It was a disaster as Team Nigeria, made up of the largest-ever contingent to an Olympic Games, lost disgracefully.
The first edition for which the football team qualified came last in a Group with Brazil, Australia, and Yugoslavia. The team, led by German coach, Manfred Hoener conceded eight goals and scored one through the late Rashidi Yekini.
Though, all teams comprised of amateur footballers at the time.
