Putting lives on the line for country

India’s Babita Kumari (red) challenges Nigeria’s Christi Nwoye during their 51kg women’s freestyle wrestling match at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi
by Ifeanyi Ibeh


October 16, 2010




Not many Nigerians know Helen Okus, Ifeoma Iheanacho and Daniel Amas. Even among their countrymen hooked on sports, their names do not ring a bell. Yet they are patriotic Nigerians; athletes who put their lives on the line for their country.


Okus, Iheanacho and Amas were part of Nigeria's wrestling team to the Commonwealth Games, which ended in India on Thursday.

For the trio it was better they suffered some physical discomfort rather than see their country miss a shot at glory. As the Nigerian contingent got set to leave Delhi on Thursday, arrangement was made for Amas and Okus to remain behind to undergo surgery before coming back to Nigeria.

Giving their all

Daniel Igali, Technical Adviser of the Nigerian wrestling team explained why they did not return with their colleagues.

"Right now Daniel Amas lost two of his teeth in one of the matches and is staying behind in India for surgery. The same goes for Helen Okus who wrestled all through the tournament with a slipped disc which is a very serious injury.

"Her right arm was almost numb but she is staying behind for surgery while Ifeoma Iheanacho could barely walk a day before the competition because of fever, and I didn't even think she was going to compete but she still went ahead to get a bronze.

"They believe they can give their all for the country and if anything happens to them the country will take care of them and that is what I have learnt about them," added Igali, who won an Olympic gold.

"The one thing that I have learnt from our athletes is that they give you everything," Igali said on Thursdayin Lagos. "The one thing that I know about our athletes is that if you tell them to give you 100 push-ups they give you 120. They are willing to give everything in a match."

Tactics

Prior to the Commonwealth Games, not many people expected the country's wrestlers to put up such a remarkable showing at the Games especially as the team never had the needed international exposure leading up to the event in India.

Besides the African Championships in June and the World Championships, which came up in September in Russia, our wrestlers never had any other opportunity to prepare for the Commonwealth Games, which makes their feat in India all the more remarkable as only the 14 medals achieved through the combined efforts of the country's weightlifting and power lifting teams was able to surpass the feat of the wrestling team.

But this wouldn't have been possible but for some behind the scene moves by Igali, a former Olympian who was one of 50 Nigerians honoured by the federal government during the country's 50th Independence celebrations.

These included confiscating cell phones and setting curfews for the athletes, as well as staying up long into the night to gather vital information on opponents.

"When I see the draws, I go on Google and You Tube to scout on the athletes they are going to wrestle," he said. "I don't sleep until I get all the details about their opponents which is usually after 3am."

And since protests have become a part of the sport, it became common sight to see Igali halting matches on a number of occasions most prominently in the 96kg Men's Freestyle final between Sinvie Boltic and Canada's Kory Jarvis where he launched one of his trademark protests with just under half a second to the end of the bout.

"You have to be ready to take that option so that your athlete can sometimes take a much needed break like the case of Sinvie who was already gassed out in that fight," Igali said. "After the protest he had 20 seconds to hang in there and he got through and got us a gold.

"That can sometimes be the difference between winning and losing."

Teenage sensation

There was also the case of 17-year-old sensation Odunayo Adekuroye who prior to her bout against Canada's Carol Huynh, had no idea she was about to come up against the reigning world and Olympic champion.

"She wrestled a Canadian (Carol Huynh) in the first round and she was so confident of beating her but narrowly lost the bout," said Igali.

"She was inconsolable afterwards until I informed her that the person she had lost to was the world and Olympic champion."

The effect of this revelation was clear to see as Adekuroye went on to claim a bronze medal after back-to-back flawless 7-0 wins over Scotland's Fiona Robertson in the semi finals, and South Africa's Brumilda Leeuw in the bronze medal match.

All down to teamwork

But Igali, who before the Games was expecting the team to return home with 10 medals, insists credit for the team's success isn't solely his but the combined efforts of every member of the wrestling team, including his coaching assistants.

"I will have to give the credit to the athletes because they are the ones that actually competed," he said. "It's the person who's in the arena that the credit should go to, then the coaches: David Onoapo, Okporu Enekpedekumo, Tiebiri Godswill and Tony Ubaka who were with us in camp and carried out all the programmes we had put in place for the athletes.

"I have been working with these coaches since 2007 and what we have been trying to do is to encourage total wrestling.

"The results from this competition are what we have been imparting in the athletes for the past three years. By the time we have more regular competitions I think we can expect better results."

Poor wrestling background

Only India and Canada finished above Nigeria in the wrestling event of the Commonwealth Games which is all the more remarkable considering that the only wrestling championship in the 2010 calendar in Nigeria is the championship bankrolled by the Bayelsa State government which doesn't come up until next month.

Such is the pitiable state of wrestling in Nigeria. But Igali is quick to admit that the Delhi feat would had been much more difficult to accomplish but for the support of the National Sports Commission (NSC).

"The NSC has done well," Igali said. "We went to the African Championships in June and four of our wrestlers that won gold went to the world championships in September.

"We have a very good relationship with the NSC, particularly with (its director-general) Patrick Ekeji. He is someone who has been very responsive to our needs and doesn't mind me calling him up very late at night.

I can call him up at two in the morning and see him at anytime of the day.

"He made it possible for us to get the programmes that we may not had been able to get in the past. As an example, at the 2007 All Africa Games in Algiers we were able to go with about six coaches, but in the past we only went with two. While in India we went with four coaches, so we are beginning to get more recognition from the NSC."

Besides the NSC, the Bayelsa State government, particularly the governor, Timipre Sylva, who has never hidden his love for the sport, had been most helpful especially in the area of training for the athletes.

"He (Sylva) has been very supportive of wrestling and has even promised to get a 32-seater bus for the national team," said is Igali, who is from Bayelsa State.

"He even came around to see the team in training a number of times in the company of (wrestling federation boss) Austin Edeze and urged the athletes to bring glory to the country with a promise to reward them for every medal they get to win in India."

Target

The topmost priority for Igali at the moment are next year's All-Africa Games in Mozambique and the World Championships in Turkey which serves as qualifying tournaments for the London 2012 Olympics where he hopes one of his wrestlers will finally be able to secure a medal.

But if that doesn't come to pass, don't expect Igali to leave the stage for one of his assistants to take charge as he insists he is going nowhere until a Nigerian wrestler, wearing the country's colours, wins an Olympic medal.

"We have quite a number of coaches in the coaching crew but I don't see myself leaving the scene until we win an Olympic gold medal," he added.

Nigeria returns from Chess Olympiad with bronze

By Ifeanyi Ibeh


October 8, 2010

Nigeria’s men’s and women’s teams to the just concluded 39th World Chess Olympiad both finished a respectable third place in their respective categories at the end of the championship which took place in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.

In the men’s category, the Nigerian team, consisting of Bunmi Olape, Charles Campbell, Olamide Ajibowo, Inimo Kigigha and Ajibola Olanrewaju, churned out a series of consistent performances in the championship’s category E to place behind Zambia and Pakistan. In the women’s category, where Rachael Dappa, Rosemary Amadasun, Tobi Olatunji, Funmi Akinola and Vivian Dzaayem flew Nigeria’s flag with honour, they finished in third place behind Jamaica and Qatar, which was a much better performance than was the case at the last edition in Dresden, Germany where they placed a distant seventh position.

More experience needed

The men’s team final position in Russia was however a spot behind the second place finish they achieved in Germany. The leader of ‘Team Nigeria’ to the Chess Olympiad, Sani Mohammed, said that the players may have performed better if they have been exposed to more international competition prior to the tournament. “The team that participated in the tournament was largely made up of players appearing in only their first international tournament,” he said. “But they were selected to represent the nation based on their respective performance during the trial process. But if we can continue like this, we have the potentials to make better grading at other international competitions including the next All Africa Games in Zambia next year.”

The coach of the team, Lekan Adeyemi, expressed confidence that all the players to the Chess Olympiad will be pre-tournament favourites when next a tournament takes place in Nigeria owing to the experience they have garnered over the course of the world championship. “Before we travelled many people expressed doubts on the ability of the team but I have a strong belief that they will excel because they made their mark during the trial organised in Lagos and if they can be exposed to more tournaments outside the country it will be a blessing to the country in the long run,” he said.

Aside the bronze medals won by the country’s teams, Ajibowo also bagged a FIDE Master title just as Charles Campbell bagged a Candidate Master title for the four points he made playing on board three. Forty countries took part in this year’s Chess Olympiad, which is the biggest event in the sports’ calendar.

Basketball hoping to rebound

The D’Tigers could not make it to the 2010 FIBA World Basketball Championship in Turkey
By Ifeanyi Ibeh and Tolu Asaolu


October 3, 2010


Basketball has over the years become one of the most popular sports in Nigeria. Although not as popular as football, it is played in every part of the country and has come a long way since it was first introduced in educational institutions as far back as the 1930s.



By 1965 the first inter-regional basketball championship took place in Lagos but it wasn't until the mid-80s that Nigerian basketball was exposed to the outside world following the exploits of Akeem Olajuwon in the United States of America.

After an illustrious college career with the University of Houston, in Texas, Olajuwon was drafted into the National Basketball Association (NBA) by the Houston Rockets in 1984 and thus began the beginning of an illustrious career that would see the Lagos-born seven footer playing in the NBA till the 2001-2002 season.

Nigeria's NBA entourage

Olajuwon pioneered the appearance of Nigerians in the NBA, and many others followed the same route he took, from college to the NBA. These include Yinka Dare and Julius Nwosu who were drafted in the 1994-1995 season with Dare joining the New Jersey Nets, and Nwosu the San Antonio Spurs.

Nwosu only spent a season in San Antonio before heading to Russia, where he won the league title with CSKA Moscow, but Dare, a seven footer, went on to play four seasons in the NBA. He however died of a heart attack in 2004 at the age of 31.

The American collegiate system served as a breeding ground for Nigerian basketball players but not all of them ended up playing in the NBA. Most of them ended up in Europe, the Middle East and the Far East; most notably Tunji Awojobi.

The success story of Nigerian players hasn't however translated into success at the national team level as the best the country has achieved at the African Championship have been three third-place finishes, twice behind Angola and on one occasion behind Senegal.

The team has however been to the World Championships on two occasions the last of which was back in 2006, eight years after making a debut appearance at the 1998 championship.

Ladies set the pace

The women haven't fared any better than their men folks, but women's basketball is a relatively new sport in Nigeria.

It was not until the beginning of the decade that it gained an appreciable level of followership in Nigeria despite the exploits of the First Bank women's basketball team on the African continent dating back to the 1990s.

The club's exploits notwithstanding, success didn't come the way of the national team until effort was made by the Nigeria Basketball federation (NBBF) to lure American based players of Nigerian origin into the national team at the turn of the century.

Leading the returnees was Mfon Udoka who was able to form a formidable partnership with the Nigerian born Mactabene Amachree, who along with Udoka were plying their trade in the WNBA. The multi-talented Itoro Umoh, who had already represented the United States at the Pan-American Games, winning a bronze medal in the process, also joined the pack.

By 2003, the team swept all comers to the gold medal at the All-Africa Games in Abuja, claimed the African title the following year, before going on to the Olympic Games in Athens where, with the likes of Rashidat Sadiq and Mobolaji Akiode posted impressive figures on the floor - the team finished a respectable 11th with Udoka emerging as the tournament's rebound leader and second leading scorer, just as Umoh emerged as the assists leader.

Poor management

In 2006, the women's basketball team made a historic appearance at the World Basketball Championships but have since then struggled to make any positive impact, even on the continent. A situation Akiode, who now operates a foundation aimed at developing the potentials in girls - Hope for Girls - attributes to the poor management skills of the NBBF.

"The game has been poorly managed by the federation and it will only get worse as long as we have the wrong people in the federation," Akiode said in a recent interview.

Akiode isn't alone in taking a swipe at the NBBF. Joyce Ekworomadu, another member of the golden generation, believes it will be very difficult for the federation to convince overseas born Nigerians to play for the national team henceforth.

"There are so many Nigerian athletes that I know in the NBA, WNBA and Colleges that would love to play for their country, I mean who wouldn't," Ekworomadu said.

"However, they have either been a part of or have heard witnesses talk about such disorganisation that it discourages them to play for the country."

There are however those who are of the opinion that lesser dependence should be placed on the overseas based players and more on the development of the domestic game.

"Besides not having enough indoor facilities we don't have enough developmental programmes and games to develop the younger ones," said basketball coach Okolo Emmanuel of the Lagos Chariots.

"The home leagues are not well funded so we will continue to rely on the foreign based players and continue to play second fiddle to Angola whose national team consists mostly of players who play in their home league.

"Their league is well funded, their players are well paid and they play a lot of games unlike the Nigerian league where teams play far lesser number of games."

Delhi Games at last

By Ifeanyi Ibeh

October 3, 2010 02:51AM

Despite the negative publicity it received over the past few months, the 19th Commonwealth Games will actually take place in New Delhi, India.

Seven years ago, the sprawling city of over 18 million inhabitants was awarded the hosting rights to what started out 80 years ago in Hamilton, Canada as the British Empire Games.

But rather than showcasing the rich cultural heritage of the second most populated country in the world, the Commonwealth Games has only extensively highlighted a country bedevilled by corruption, in which there is a huge gulf between the poor and the rich.

Besides the corruption and poverty - according to the United Nations, by 2005, 42 per cent of its 1.2 billion inhabitants lived below the World Bank's international poverty line of $1.25 a day, there's also the case of missed construction deadlines as well as the threat of a attacks from terror groups.

In the past few weeks, reports of dubious construction certificates were proven when a footbridge at the main stadium collapsed injuring many workers.

Corrupt Games

Just last Wednesday, a Supreme Court justice in Delhi said corruption was rampant in the Commonwealth Games and that the event will turn into a source of self-enrichment for many involved in organising the Games.

A report in the Times of India newspaper even went as far as reporting that Suresh Kalmadi, the organising committee's chairman, was "an inept organiser" who has filled his committee with his buddies, 19 of whom have employed family members.

Most employees within the organising committee were not properly qualified for their positions but were "selected on the basis of being wives, children, nephews and relations of persons who run Indian sport," the newspaper reported.

Not prepared to sit back and take all the blame, Kalmadi accused the Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive Mike Hooper of doing nothing in his four years as a temporary Delhi resident.

Hooper, a New Zealander, has reportedly been living the high life at the expense of the Indian government over the past four years but was recently accused of insulting Indians by saying Delhi's "population hazard" hampered the organisation of the Games.

Terror groups

An even bigger threat to the Games than the feud between the two, even bigger than the unhygienic conditions inside the unfinished athletes village or the venomous cobras that have been found at the athletes village, is the ever looming threat of attacks from terror groups.

The Times of India reported that last week, a Pakistani journalist known for his links to the Pakistan intelligence complex met an Indian diplomat in Islamabad to say that he had spoken to Ilyas Kashmiri, leader of Al Qaida's Pakistan-based 313 Brigade. According to the journalist, Kashmiri threatened an attack in India during the Games.

Indian and other foreign security agencies went into overdrive to assess the threat. But officials argued that there was none of the signs that were evident in the run-up to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which lasted for four days between November 26-29, killing at least 173 people and wounding at least 308.

On Thursday, the government officially warned Delhi Police and other security agencies, as well as security officials of each participating team, about this new "information", which led to a stern warning from the Indian home secretary Gopal Pillai to the Pakistani high commissioner Shahid Malik that any terror attack in India during the Commonwealth Games traced back to Pakistan will essentially be treated as a hostile act.

Malik was reminded of a threat by Kashmiri earlier this year that athletes coming for the Commonwealth Games would be targeted by his terror group. Kashmiri had also threatened to attack the country's top cricket league - the Indian Premier League - and the World Cup hockey tournament in Delhi but no attacke took place.

Nevertheless, the Pakistani government are also not taking the report lightly. The Daily Times of Pakistan reported on Thursday that Pakistan's Interior Ministry, along with various security establishments, are in a "state of panic" regarding the threat, which might jeopardise the already strained relations between both countries.

Even if the terror threat is not "credible", Indian agencies believe this could be another tactic to spread fear.

Hopefully, the more than 100,000 security officials, including elite commandos, provided by the Indian government for the Games should be able prevent any attack during the event.

Withdrawals take shine off Games

Many also hope that once the Games start, the negativity surrounding it will become a thing of the past and that the focus will be on the athletes. But there are doubts regarding such a possibility as many of the best athletes in the Commonwealth will not participate.

They include the world's fastest man, Usain Bolt and his predecessor, Asafa Powell, as well as five high profile Kenyan athletes - Olympic 1,500m champion, Asbel Kiprop; world 800m record holder, David Rudisha; world 10,000m champion, Linet Masai; former World marathon champion, Luke Kibet; and Commonwealth Games 800m champion, Janeth Jepkosgei.

Australia's world discus champion, Dani Samuels and England's triple jump world champion, Phillips Idowu, as well as Olympic 400m champion, Christine Ohuruogu, and most recently South Africa's high-profile world 800m champion, Caster Semenya, have also pulled out of the Games.

Injuries, security and health reasons have been cited by many of the athletes as reasons for their withdrawal.

Their absence notwithstanding, the Games will be held, as scheduled. Probably, the only fear as the apprehensive world awaits the opening ceremony is whether spectators will be able to fill up the venues and cheer the athletes to glory as thousands of Games tickets remain unsold.