Nigeria will be gunning for the fourth gold medal as the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games kick off officially today in Japan.
Though, events had begun on Wednesday ahead of today’s ceremonial opening at the 68,000-seat Olympic Stadium which would only be witnessed by less than 1000 people, including officials and accredited journalists occasioned by the ravaging COVID-19 in Japan.
As of the time of this report, 12 new positive COVID-19 cases were reported by the Games organising committee, with two infected foreign athletes in the Games village.
Arguably, for the first time in history, spectators have to be barred from coming to the stadium to watch Olympic events to prevent the spread of the pandemic.
Since 1952 when Nigeria debuted at the Helsinki Games, only three gold medals had been won by Team Nigeria out of 25 medals from 16 appearances with athletics and boxing supplying most of the medals.
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Chioma Ajunwa blazed the golden record for Nigeria with her 7.12m in long jump at Atlanta ‘96 Olympics followed by the soccer gold won at the same edition by Nwankwo Kanu-led Dream Team.
The third gold came by default at Sydney 2000 as USA which won the men’s 4x400m gold had to be stripped of the medal after one of the Americans, Antonio Pettigrew, admitted to have taken performance-enhancing drugs, thus the team was found guilty of doping offence.
Nigeria’s silver won by the team made up of Nduka Awazie, Fidelis Gadzama, Clement Chukwu, Jude Monye, the late Sunday Bada and Enefiok Udo-Obong, had to be upgraded to gold by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Interestingly, Nigeria will be absent in the boxing event for the first time, as no Nigerian boxer qualified for the 2020 Olympics. The last boxer to represent Nigeria at the Olympics was Efe Ajagba, who lost in the quarter-final at Rio 2016.
Nigeria with 60 athletes will feature in 10 events at the ongoing Tokyo Olympics – athletics, wrestling, judo, taekwondo, table tennis, badminton, basketball, gymnastics, rowing and canoeing, as sole representative, Esther Oko will start the heat in rowing today.
Also, Nigerians heavily bank on one of the world leading wrestlers, Odunayo Adekuoroye and Ese Brume, who in May this year dusted the 7.12 African record held by Chioma Ajunwa to set 7.17m record, as well as sprint hurdler Tobiloba Amusan who placed fourth at the 2019 World Championship in Doha, Qatar running inside 12.50 thrice.
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Blessing Okagbare equally remains a medal prospect at the Games with her exploits and current form. Okagbare had last month in Bratislava, Slovakia, dipped within 11 seconds for the third time this season. She ran 10.98 seconds to win the 100m race and in the process smashed the 11.09 seconds meeting record set in June 1983 by Jarmila Kratochvilova of Czech Republic.
Aruna Quadri who finished in the quarter-final at Rio 2016, the best Olympic record by an African could spring surprises this time, as Nigeria also boasts rising Olajide Omotayo, reigning Africa’s men’s singles table tennis champion, who is determined to create an upset in his debut.
Also, Nigerians would bank on D’Tigers which floored USA and Argentina earlier this month in friendlies as the Mike Brown-piloted team boasts NBA players who can withstand any level of opposition to make a podium appearance at Tokyo 2020.