Hehehe! Seriously, this is really shameful…
After seventeen glorious days, the London 2012 Olympic Games ended on Sunday with 26 games, 204countries, and 10, 820 Athletes. United states topped the list by winning 104 medals, followed by China (87 medals) and Britain (65 medals).
The bad news is that Team Nigeria
returned home with no medal, raising questions over the N1.9bn budgeted
for the Nigeria’s participation at the Games.
Our Blessing Okagbare, Christy Udoh, Gloria Asumnu, Oludamola Osayomi, Ajoke Odumosu and
Okagbare did put up a fight but the efforts were not good enough to fetch Nigeria any gold.
You will recall that our basketball team reached the Olympics for the first time with much
expectation, especially after beating Greece and Lithuania,
respectively ranked 4th and 5th in the world, during the qualifiers.
There was disappointment after the table tennis team was ousted a day
after the opening ceremony but there were last minute hopes that later
produced no medals for Nigeria.
Meanwhile, a member of the
Association of Veteran Sports Administrators Forum, Martins Osaile, on reacting to the nation’s failure in London, said
Nigerians should hold the Federal Government responsible for the poor
outing. (Gbam)
Osaile said, “Before 1999 when we returned to democratic rule, our
sport was healthy, today it is almost dead. The present government in
the hands of our people is not ready to develop sport in Nigeria. They
play game with the future of our athletes. They have forgotten that
there is political power in achieving excellence in global events.
“When the present head of the Nigeria Olympic Committee, Sanni
Ndanusa, was the president of tennis federation, I challenged him to
list his achievements in the sport. To the surprise of Nigerians, he
became the sports minister and now NOC president. That shows how the
Nigerian government has relegated sport in Nigeria.”
