SPORTS /RIO OLYMPICS

Nigerians React To Team Nigeria’s Performance At Rio Olympics

  At the beginning of the month of August, the world stood still for a much- anticipated Olympics games in Brazil, As Rio Olympics draws to an exciting end today, the competition provided the sport-loving populace around the world moments to cheer and time to sober as the athletes continued to strive for excellence that took them four years to prepare for.

Prior to this year’s Olympic games, Nigeria made its debut at the Helsinki 1952 Olympic Games. Over the course of 15 editions, the country has won 23 medals: 2 golds (in football and track and field, at Atlanta 1996), nine silvers and 12 bronzes.

At the Rio Olympics, Team Nigeria was as usual plagued with challenges of inadequate preparations and lack of funds; as the games progressed, the Nigerian athletes began to crash out of their respective games, except the Men football team who eventually won the only medal for the country.

Been into the streets of Lagos to get Nigerians’ opinions on Team Nigeria’s performance 

Bolu Ogunbade, a Banker said: “Team Nigeria’s performance was appalling, disappointing, I will say the sports ministry needs to take the preparations to the Olympics seriously because the country has faced  this issue over time and nobody is doing anything to it

Singling out the Dream team, Joseph Bassey, a sport journalist said: “Hard to criticize them but the game against Germany is hard to overlook, Truthfully, I didn’t a lot except for that Japan game; I felt they improved through their games but against Germany they lacked organization.”

Tunde, a student of Lagos State University criticized: “they performed woefully, they should not have gone at all, they just went to Brazil to disgrace us.”

Chimezie, a photographer lamented: “I did not really follow them really but I am aware they did not win any medal that’s bad, but I did not expect the much from them so I am not surprised.”

Adegbola, a financial adviser said: “I think they tried giving the lack of support from the government, I think they tried, so at least sponsored themselves to the competition while most of them advanced to the quarterfinals.”

Preparations for any typical Olympics game takes over four years to get into a winning form, Nigerian athletes are not given the opportunity to train due to various challenges such as lack of funding, inadequate support and dearth of training facilities.