Lessons From 2014 Commonwealth Games

Team Nigeria returned from the just concluded Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland with a total of 36 medals comprising 11 gold, 11 silver and 14 bronze medals. The performance by the Nigerian contingent in the games has been described as the second best at the 84-year-old quadrennial games since the country won 11 gold, 13 silver and 13 bronze medals at the games in Victoria, Canada in 1994.  Nigeria had at the 2010 New Delhi games finished ninth on the table with 11 gold, eight silver and 14 bronze.

At the Glasgow games, Team Nigeria comprising 127 athletes took part in six sports, namely, athletics, boxing, table tennis, weightlifting, wrestling, power-lifting and para-athletics. Despite poor preparations ahead of the championship, Team Nigeria defied all odds to finish in the eighth position among 71 nations that took part in the games held from 31 July – 3 August. Nigerian athletes showed the stuff they were made of as some of them broke existing world records to create new ones.

Blessing Okagbare not only won a gold medal in the 100m women race, but the blistering run earned the sprinter a Commonwealth Games record. She also won a gold medal in the 200m race and silver medal in the 4×400 relay. The table tennis team despite being seeded below India by International Table Tennis Federation, ITTF,  went on to shock India to claim the bronze medal of the table tennis team event, unlike in the 2010 games where the sport failed to win a medal for Nigeria.

Former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, joined millions of Nigerians who applauded the performance of the Nigerian athletes at the games. He said he was glad hearing the national anthem play and the country’s flag flown high at the games. Sports Minister and the chairman of National Sports Commission, NSC, Dr Tammy Danagogo, commended the medals winners and hope that they would build on their successes in Glasgow for future competitions especially the 2016 Olympic Games.

The sterling performance by our athletes was achieved largely by dint of hard work by the athletes themselves as the country’s sports officials failed to begin early preparations for the event. Late preparations for major global sporting engagements have always been the bane of this country and the lesson to learn from this is that the nation could have done better if the lethargy had been shaken off long before the event in Glasgow.

Besides, the success at Glasgow did not come without a smear on Nigeria’s image. Disgraced 16-year-old weightlifter, Chika Amalaha, was stripped of her gold medal for failing a dope test. There’s no excuse for the avoidable embarrassment the ugly incident caused the nation. Our officials should have learnt from past experience as Amalaha’s case did not only embarrass the young girl, but the whole country.

Efforts should be made to ensure that this incident does not repeat itself again, while negligence on the part of any official and coach should be properly investigated and the culprits punished severely. Our athletes should be monitored and educated on the danger inherent in the use of drugs before, during and after a major tournament. There should be zero tolerance for doping among the nation’s athletes.

The 11th All-Africa Games, which is coming up in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo in 2015 and the 2016 Rio Olympics are two major international engagements for Team Nigeria. For Nigeria to excel in these competitions, preparation should begin as soon as possible. The usual fire brigade approach has not been helping us to achieve much. Like it was the case at the Glasgow Games, where the nation featured in six sports, Team Nigeria should always concentrate on sports which they have comparative advantage rather than featuring in events where it is difficult to win medals. This will no doubt help the authorities to prioritise the nation’s lean resources to prepare the athletes for such competitions.