What went wrong?
Saturday, 11 August 2012 00:00 From Christian Okpara, London

PRIOR to the beginning of the 2012 Olympic Games in Stratford, London, most Nigerians expected Blessing Okagbare, known as the golden girl by some, to end the

Their optimism was based on the steady progression of the girl in both the sprint and the long jump events.

A girl, who won the bronze medal of the long jump event at the Beijing Olympics four years ago when she was just a teenager, was expected to go some steps higher in London. Her legend was everywhere.

Twice in two weeks before the beginning of the hostilities in London, Okagbare had faced the best in the world and came out on top of her game. So, to London every Nigerian looked forward.

The girl even believed that she could upset the pecking order at the Olympics and outshine her 100 metres rivals from Jamaica and the United States.

Many analysts believed that the 23-year-old hit form at the right time, dipping under 11 seconds twice last month to record victories at both the London and Monaco Diamond League events against her fellow competitors for sprint gold.

Okagbare was sure she could add the long jump gold to the anticipated 100m laurel that Nigerians here in London could not wait for the track events to begin.

‘’I’m just going to go out and do my best. “I’m aiming for a top three overall. If I get the gold, I’ll take it,’’ she had said before both events. With a caveat: ‘’Whatever happens I will accept my fate.”

However, many people did not see the prophesy in the last words because Nigerians were beclouded by the euphoria of the moment and the promise that “they are not threats to me. When I went to Beijing, I was 19 and I got the bronze medal. This year it feels different.”

The anticipation was heightened in the preliminary rounds of the 100 metres when she twice ran her best times ever in the event, beating some of the top contenders in the process.

But the events of the 100m metres final day and the long jump that Okagbare have taken part in suggests that perhaps, Nigerians were demanding far too much from the girl.

Most athletics watchers knew that her slow start in the 100 metres would come to haunt her when pitched against better sprinters in the event, and their fears came to past when Okagbare did her worst race in the event in recent times, finishing last in a time of 11.01 seconds. That was an event she had made 10.92 seconds just two days before the final.

She capped the failure with a disappointing leap in the long jump, failing to qualify for the second round of an event she won the bronze medal at the Beijing Games four years ago.

So what went wrong?

On Tuesday evening at the Nigerian Village, where officials of Team Nigeria and others gathered to review the events of the past week, some of the speakers tried to pass the bulk, but one obvious thing from all their submissions was that Nigeria expected too much from a girl it did not give a chance to leave up to her potentialities.

The Guardian also gathered from that perhaps all is not well in the Team Nigeria athletics camp.

According to one of the speakers, all the other athletes in the team resent the preferential treatment Okagbare has been getting from the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) to the extent that they resolved to go just through the motions at the games.

‘’At the All Nigeria Championship in Calabar, Okagbare was housed in a five star hotel and provided with a chaffeur-driven car to the annoyance of the other athletes, who felt alienated by the AFN.

‘’Innocent Egbunike, who is the national coach, has been bottling his annoyance at the usurpation of his role by some big wigs in the AFN, who has taken over the training of Okagbare.

At major events, no matter how highly rated an athlete is, she takes instructions from the national coach. But in Nigeria things are different. Here you see all sorts of private trainers working on Nigerian athletes and Egbunike is not pleased one bit.

‘’The other day, one of the athletes confronted the coach to find out what right Okagbare has to pick who runs what leg in the relay event. The coach had to manage that by assuring the girl that the list had not been drawn and that he is the only one to decide the format. That is a sign that even the relay team is on its way to lost battle.’’

To Dr. Ken Anugweje, who is part of the Team Nigeria medical group here, Nigerians expected so much from Okagbare and such expectations did not help her.

He said: ‘’Okagbare tried all she could do here, but her best was not good enough. She could not run faster than her legs could carry her.

‘’For Nigeria to do well at the Olympics, we have to start training future stars now with the aim of using them at the 2020 Games. It is already late to train anybody for Brazil 2016 because it entails a lot of work.

‘’Take Li Yang, the 16-year-old Chinese girl, who won three gold medals in swimming, as an instance of how long term planning can benefit a country. The girl was just told after her last event that her grandmother died a year ago, and that her grandmother had been battling with cancer for two years. Is that not an indication that the girl had been doing nothing else other than training for the past three years.

‘’You don’ t just wake up one day and expect to be an Olympic champion. For us to become success in the Olympics, we must begin from the local government level to groom athletes. If we refuse to develop the grassroots then we should be ready for such results as we are reaping here. There are no two ways about it.’’

A source at the National Sports Commission (NSC), who pleaded anonymity, believes the Federal Government should take the bulk of the blame for Okagbare’s failure. Her reasoning is that if the girl got all she needed to prepare for the games and mapped out by the NSC, she would have been in better shape for the events of London 2012.

‘’As I said earlier, if we don’t separate sports budgeting from the federal budget we will continue to suffer this type of shame. We did not receive the money for our events until this year, and that is not the way things are done.

‘’There is no way we can win major tournaments when we are not as prepared as our opponents. Accidents and luck can help us some time, but it rarely sustains a team to the ultimate glory.’’
source: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=95174:what-went-wrong&catid=59:home&Itemid=620

It is better this way, because I would have been angrier if we had won any medal. Corruption is the ban of this whole thing. We keep going back to the drawing board, this time I'm watching to see if there is still space left in the board.