The Nigeria’s athletes at Paris 2024 Olympic have concluded their participation without any medal, while the team will be returning to the country empty-handed, a development which is the eighth time in Olympic history.
Penpushing reports that this became clearer as the team comprising 88 athletes who featured across 12 sports for Nigeria concluded its Paris 2024 Olympic campaign without a single medal on Saturday, when Nigeria’s last hope, Hannah Reuben lost her second-round women’s freestyle wrestling match 5-2 to Mongolia’s Davaanasan Amar Enkh.
This ugly development sealed the Nigeria’s worst Olympic outing since London 2012, while it is recalled that Nigeria’s Olympic struggles date back to Helsinki in 1952, with subsequent disappointments in Melbourne in 1956,
Penpushing further reports in related development in 1960 in Rome, and a brief respite at Tokyo in 1964, where Nojeem Mayegun won Nigeria’s first Olympic medal, but the drought continued in Mexico City in 1968, Moscow in 1980, and Seoul in 1988, before the latest disappointment in Paris.
The record equally has it that the country broke the jinx at the 1964 Tokyo Games, while Nigeria’s next Olympic medal was another bronze medal at the 1972 Olympic Games, but the country, however, boycotted the 1976 Olympics in Canada.
Penpushing also reports that at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics Nigeria won two medals which include a silver and a bronze, while this was followed by encouraging performance at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, where the country won three silver and one bronze medal.
The Nigeria’s best outing, was the 1996 Atlanta Olympics winning two gold, one silver, and three bronze medals, while the remarkable success was followed by a gold and two silver medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Penpushing reports that Nigeria in 2004 won two bronze medals in Greece and equally improved its performance at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with three silver and two bronze medals, and at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Nigeria won a solitary bronze medal in men’s football before claiming a silver and bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021.
The lack of medals in Paris, however, serves as positives to build upon as the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games countdown begins, having showed improvement in athletics, with six finalists, up from four in Tokyo 2020 and two in Rio 2016.
Penpushing further reports that records showed that Favour Ofili, inexplicably excluded from the 100m event, made history as the first Nigerian woman to reach the 200m final since Mary Onyali achieved the feat at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics.
The first Nigerian man also to reach the 400m final since Innocent Egbunike’s 1988 feat at the Seoul Olympics was 18-year-old Samuel Ogaz, while the trio of Ese Brume, Ruth Usoro, and Prestina Ochonogor made history as the first time three Nigerians reached the final in long jump
Penpushing also reports that Chukwuebuka Enekwechi, in addition finished sixth in the Shot Put event final, a notable achievement, and these achievements and a handful of others offer hope for Nigeria’s Olympic future as the country will try to build on them and break its medal drought in Los Angeles in 2028.
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