BEVERLY HILLS, May 16, (THEWILL) – Nigeria’s full participation in athletic events at the forthcoming 32nd Olympiad to be held in Tokyo, Japan has faced increasing challenges that have dimmed the chances of the country’s athletes contesting for places at the different events they have prepared for, ahead of the event.
The issues obstructing the country’s participation have to do with organising for these athletes to partake in the qualifying competitions that will guarantee their places in Tokyo.
As reported by THEWILL in May, all 24 athletes listed for the 2021 World Athletics Relays in Chorzow, Poland, by the Athletics Federation of Nigeria could not make the trip after their applications for visa were refused by the Polish Embassy in Nigeria. The embassy claimed the AFN submitted its visa applications later than was required.
To prevent the athletes from completely missing qualification for the Olympics, the Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, intervened to secure a slot for the athletes representing the country at the United States Relay Tour taking place in Texas. As a result, 16 athletes departed the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos on Thursday, May 6, to participate in the qualifying stages of the relay events.
Another avenue that was exploited after the visa shenanigans of Poland, where the athletes were expected to compete to qualify for the Tokyo games, was the African Senior Athletics Championships scheduled from June 22 to 26 at the Mohamed-Boudiaf Olympic Complex in Algiers, Algeria. Nigerian athletes left out of the Texas qualifiers were being prepared to claim their slots for their events in Tokyo through this championship.
However, that has been hit by an unfortunate snag as this important and eagerly anticipated gateway to some relay events at the Olympics and one of the last-resort qualification windows for Nigeria to Tokyo has been postponed to a date that is yet to be announced.
Citing the health situation linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and following “the recommendations “of Algeria’s Scientific Committee for monitoring the evolution of the pandemic and the country’s Ministry of Youth and Sports, the organisers called off the original start date of the Championships and placed the entire event on hold.
For athletes prepared to give their best in representing the country and in establishing their names in gold, missing out on the World Relays in Poland, not being in the contingent that flew out to Texas earlier this month while waiting for the championships in Algiers, this has come as a gut-wrenching blow. It makes it obvious how terrible it was to have missed out on Poland and may jeopardise all their chances to meet up with the requirements of participating in the Tokyo Olympic Games.
This is because the qualification window for the Olympic Games will be closed on June 29 and there is a growing shortage of athletic events that classify as qualifying series in the same class as the postponed African Championships.
In the statement issued from the ministerial department concerned with the Algiers Championships, the rationale for the postponement was clear: “Due to the health situation, marked by a rebound in the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the risk of circulation of a new variant (s), the competent authorities, following the recommendations of the scientific monitoring committee of the evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic, recommended the postponement of this sporting event to a later date,” the statement reads.
This dire situation for Nigeria’s full participation in the athletics events at the Games is not helped by the circumstances surrounding athletes waiting for their visas to join their comrades due to participate in the Relay Tours in the US.
Visa delays have also hampered the opportunity of Nigerian Olympics prospects like the brilliant Alaba Akintola, who demonstrated his promise for a podium finish at the Olympics by racing to gold at the recently concluded National Sports Festival held in Edo State early this year. As a true product of the rationale for the fiesta, it is unfortunate that his chances at the big stage may be upset by the small details of his visa delay.
Apart from Akintola, Seye Ogunlewe is languishing in Abuja for the same reason. The 29-year-old track and field sprinter specialises in the 100 metres and was a finalist in the 100m and 4 × 100m events at the 2015 All-Africa Games. He won the 100m event at the Nigerian Championships in 2015 and 2016. Yet, he may not be at the Olympics if he cannot make it to the qualifiers.
Although the AFN Secretary, Niyi Beyioku, gave the athletes the assurance that they would be immediately flown to their respective events as soon as their visas applications were approved, it is an unfortunate course of events for these athletes that the organisation for their participation at these events is so inherently sloppy.
These athletes are ambassadors of the country and they deserve to have the details of their visas and welfare handled properly and in a systematic and timely manner that will not encumber them with anything other than to focus on their training and readiness to represent the country. That visa issues are still being used to bottleneck willing athletes, even after the Olympics were pushed back by a whole year, is truly regrettable.
The physical, mental and psychological state that these athletes will be in now because of the anxieties sadly brought on them by the uncertainty of their participation at the qualifying series cannot be removed from how they will eventually perform. If they are unable to rise to the occasion and not qualify or if they make it by dint of personal mental power, it must be remembered that they went through much pain and difficulty in their preparation for the Tokyo Olympic Games. Their competitors did not have to face these obstacles and they were better funded, had better facilities and were well treated.
All this put together paints a sordid picture for the country’s pursuit of more medals in the track and field events at the games. For a country with a history of bagging most of her medals from the track and field, as well as boxing events, preparing her representatives in such slipshod manner is the very antithesis of seeking improvement in the nation’s fortunes at sports’ biggest stage, especially against competitors backed by better structured and more systemic organisations.
Of the 25 medals Team Nigeria have won at the Olympic Games, 13 have come from the track and field. The first ever individual gold medal, which the amazon Chioma Ajunwa won at the Atlanta Games in 1996, was in the women’s long jump event.
Since then, it has been silver medals, with the Beijing Olympics in 2008, where Blessing Okagbare won silver in the women’s long jump event and the quartet of Gloria Kemasuode, Halimat Ismaila, Franca Idoko and Damola Osayomi gave the country another in the women’s 4x100m event. Unless the organization, ahead of the games is golden, expecting the type of performance that merits gold medals is trying to reap where one has not sown.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
