‘So far, so good.’
This has, however, not been the case for Nigeria in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Though success has not been our forte, the defeat being experienced has me thinking perhaps, it was made just for us.
Having been on a steady roll of losses, the icing on the cake seemed to be when all of Nigeria’s athletes were disqualified on account of failure to meet the minimum drug testing requirements as per “Rule 15”, which requires at least three no-notice out-of-competition blood and urine drug tests conducted no less than three weeks apart in the 10 months leading up to a major event.
This led to Nigerian athletes achieving the entry standards, either by qualifying time or by world ranking, in the following track and field events (up to a maximum of 3 athletes in each event). The Nigerian basketball and badminton team have also failed to advance to the quarter-finals.
Single sports were not much better as the roads leading to medals in Taekwondo, table tennis, swimming, gymnastics were shut mercilessly.
Enoch Adegoke came very close to winning a medal for Nigeria but his chances were cut short as he came down with injury in the finals of the men’s 100 metres.
Luckily, Team Nigeria would not be going home medal-less as Blessing Oborodudu has qualified for the finals of the women’s wrestling tournament. This guarantees the team of either a silver or gold medal depending on the outcome of the final holding on Tuesday.