By Victor Enyinnaya on August 7, 2016

After taking a long look on the shoddy preparations that characterised Team Nigeria’s build up to the ongoing 2016 Olympics Game in Rio, Brazil, a member of the football gold winning Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games squad, Taribo West, has vividly recalled how the team was in camp just for two months preparing for the Games.

He believes that if the Samson Siasia tutored lads could put behind them initial setbacks the team experienced during the shape up for the Olympic football event, the team seems to have some depth to make remarkable impact. He however, implores Nigerians to develop thick skin as the 2016 Rio Olympics Games gets on track. The wise fans will device shock absorber to avoid hypertension on Team Nigeria’s outing at the Games, he advised.

“For a team to arrived six hours to their first group game against Japan and came out with a win means the side has some statement to make as the championship gets under way. Siasia has to talk to his defenders and the goalkeeper. Once these areas are tightly plugged before the match against Sweden on Sunday, then the boys can take it from there,” he adds. 

According to him, however, the all-conquering 1996 side prepared very hard physically, mentally and otherwise facing our tougher opponents as they came, pronto we won gold medal, the first by any African team at the Olympics.

“It did not come on platter of gold at all, Siasia is aware and the kind of spirit that guarded us then could equally be re-enacted. We passed through real rough times in the US while preparing for the event. Such has become a norm in Nigeria sports as regards major international meets. It is on record that before we finally departed for Atlanta, sometimes, we were locked out of our hotel rooms and we had to sleep in the lobby because the hotel bill had not been paid. Another time, there was no bus to take us to training.

“The saddest aspect of it is that these things have kept repeating themselves as if the so called administrators learnt nothing and forgot to improve on the same self-inflicted errors of the past.  It keeps multiplying and it is no doubt, the root of the country’s continued under development in sports. There are lots of jobbers and pretenders in the system that have made it remain unworkable,” he pointed out.

West restated that there are abundant talents in the land but regretted that the headache has been the teething problem of how best to truly harness those talents for effective output that would impact generously on our sports enduringly. The fact, he further stressed remains that every new person at the helm devices ways to make his money and returned lip services to sports.

He posits that facilities for training athletes and coaches have been the worst hit, while Ministry officials, secretaries of federations smile to the banks after acquiring choice properties leaving athletes in abject poverty. “It’s obvious now that sports in the country need revolution that would liberate it from this firm grip of the past, but who will bell the cat?” he asks.

“Until these anomalies are thoroughly addressed and solutions are found and strictly implemented, the vicious circle whereby few individuals pocket the yearly huge sports monetary vote would continue to thrive unabated. These administrators have long discovered that nobody cares to ask for accountability; how the enormous funds meant for sports development, athletes welfare, training and retraining of coaches and sundry are spent and therefore, they have field day all these odd years,” he lamented.

It would be recalled that Nigeria first competed in the Olympics in 1952 and has since then participated in 15 editions, having boycotted the 1976 edition in Montreal, Canada. But the country has only been able to amass just 23 medals – three gold, eight silver and 12 bronze largely due to inadequate preparations. The Nigerian tradition where politicians, civil servants and representatives of traditional rulers outnumber athletes during international competitions that Nigeria is participating in still persists.

It is confirmed that 86 athletes will represent Nigeria in Rio; the number of officials to the games is yet to be made known. Most often, Nigeria’s officials’ delegation to international championships are usually shocking.

•Photo shows Taribo West.

Source Daily Sports

Posted August 7, 2016

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