Rio Olympics: Less Than 2 Months To Olympics, Team Nigeria Still Struggling For Funds To Start Training & Preparation

There is an adage that says 'when you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.’ With less than two months to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in Brazil, Team Nigeria is anything but ready to participate with any prospect of glory in the biggest sporting event in the world, leaving Nigerians concerned and disenchanted.

One would have expected there to be a change in attitude and approach after the embarrassingly empty-handed outing at the London 2012 Olympics. The upcoming Rio Olympics promises to be worse, with the team potentially only coming home with the Zika virus.

While other countries are intensifying, fine-tuning and approaching the final stages of preparation, Team Nigeria is struggling to get funds released for training and preparation, resulting in some athletes seeking out sponsors or exhausting their hard-earned financial resources.

The budgetary hullabaloo has not helped matters, with the budget only released a few weeks ago, leaving the athletes running helter-skelter for a release of funds to at least get a modest six-week preparation.

Moreover, the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) added another twist to the shoddy and disappointing preparation saga with the revelation that the sports ministry in Abuja has allegedly failed to release money to pay visa fees for Nigerian athletes expected to jet out to Durban, South Africa, for the African Senior Athletics Championship late next week.

Several appeals by former and veteran Olympians have fallen on deaf ears. The former African queen of the track Mary Onyali raised her fears and anxiety over the nation’s medal prospects in Brazil, due to a lack of planning and preparation, finding solace in prayer instead.

Speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), she said: “I am gripped with fear and anxiety that what happened in 2012 may happen again. I am hoping and praying to God. I am not wishing any athlete to fail, but I am  hoping and praying that we can win a medal.”

“We have failed to plan to win: we want to win and then plan, and it is not possible. When other nations are planning to win, we are praying.”

“It is going to be a tough battle because you don’t pick a medal. Any medal, even if it is a World Championship medal is not picked, you plan for it.”

“New structure of plans would have been in place to change what was done wrong in 2012 so that we can get a medal but I didn’t see it. That is why I said I am nervous that we may not be able to come back with a medal again and it will be very disheartening and devastating to the country.”

Africa’s most decorated table tennis player Segun Toriola, who has already featured in six Olympics since his debut at Barcelona, Spain, in 1992, and will be making history with his seventh Olympics in Brazil, recently expressed his disappointment at the level of preparation via a statement released through NAN on Wednesday.

He said: “I don’t think we have ever had it so bad like this because even at the last Olympics in London, by this time we had started preparations. And I don’t think any athlete can do much in Brazil.”

“I think nobody should expect much for the athletes because most of our opponents are rounding up their preparations while we have not started.”

“We have to know that it is the biggest stage for every athlete career, and all those that have been winning Olympic medals had quality preparations.”

For Nigeria, a nation of over 170 million people with vast resources, to be reduced to praying, rather than being on foreign soil, camping, training and preparing is a sad and shameful development. After all, we are only due to compete in eight sports, including football, basketball, canoeing, table-tennis, track & field and wrestling.

Considering President Buhari released N2.9 billion last year for the 2015 All Africa Games and the Olympics, the question therefore is, what has happened to the N640 million that Mallam Alhassan Yakmut, the director general of the defunct sports commission, said remained after the All Africa Games?

The minister of youth and sports development, Solomon Dalung, also expressed his disappointment at the level of preparation by athletes five months ago, pledging to make an effort to speed things up, but less than eight weeks to the Olympics, preparations are crawling rather than speeding up.

“Having qualified, you need to train very well because you’re going to face other qualifiers. Do your best in training and aspire to dominate your opponents during the games.”

“Our camping will be in two phases. Since we’ve not been able to improve on our facilities, we will make use of what we have for the first stage which will soon be over before exposing you to the second phase which will be outside the country. I believe that the state of our facilities will be better before the next Olympics. Do not be discouraged because all your sacrifices are for the country. I wish you well and we will consider training tours that will be of comparative advantage to all athletes,” Dalung assured.