As Okagbare Saves The Day

Nigeria’s outing at the just concluded 14th IAAF World Championships, an equivalent of the FIFA Football World Cup, was almost as disastrous as the country’s woeful performance at the 2012 London Olympics, but for Blessing Okagbare who saved the day in Moscow by winning two medals. Team Nigeria didn’t win even a medal in London last year.

This time, Okagbare helped Nigeria to finish 24th on the overall medals table at the end of the competition in Moscow, Russia on Sunday night.

In the just concluded championships, Okagbare was the only Nigerian athlete who shone brightly. It was Okagbare’s  silver and bronze medals that erased the impending shame that awaited Nigeria at the end of the IAAF games as the nation’s prospects of winning medals diminished by the day when the nation’s athletes started falling by the way side one after the other.

The Delta State-born athlete won a silver medal when she leaped to 6.99m in the women’s Long Jump event and then ran a time of 22.32 seconds to clinch a bronze in the women’s 200m event to become the third Nigerian woman to run in the finals of the 200m at the IAAF World Championships after Mary Onyali and Fatimah Yusuf.

Okagbare was also the first Nigerian athlete to win two medals in one world athletics championships and the first to mount the podium since 1999 in Seville, Spain.

While Nigeria’s 20-man contingent is back in the country from Russia, Okagbare, who did the nation proud at the world tourney, is going for some other tournaments; the Diamond League in Stockholm next week where she will take part in the 100m, 200m and long jump events of that competition. She will also participate in another Diamond League event in Zurich, which will hold on 29 August and the Brussels, Belgium meet on 9 September.

With these busy schedules for Okagbare, who is studying at the University of Texas at El Paso, efforts must be made to support her and other Nigerian athletes who have the potentials of winning medals for the country at the world stage.

It is high time the authorities took the welfare of the country’s athletes seriously whether there is a tournament to participate in or not, so that they could compete effectively with their counterparts across the world.

The Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games is fast approaching and preparations for the competition must start now. Efforts should also be made to turn around the dwindling fortunes of Nigeria’s male athletes as none of them won any medal at the just concluded World Championships. In the past Nigerian male athletes gave a good account of themselves by winning medals for the country at the Olympics and other major international sporting events.

The nation’s lost glory in international sporting competitions could be restored if sports administrators show greater commitment to their jobs and give adequate support to the athletes to excel.