THESE are hard times for Team Nigeria officials. An Olympics that promised so much for Nigerians before the first event flagged off has suddenly become a nightmare to the officials, who have now been forced to come down from their high horses in the bid to rescue a dying campaign.Before the Olympics began on July 27, officials of the Nigeria Olympics Committee (NOC) and the federations told Nigerians that they expected the Team Nigeria contingent to win at least six gold medals, among many others. Their calculations were based on the 'devastating' form of Blessing Okagbare, Chika Chukwumerije, the women relays, Maryam Usman of weightlifting and boxer Edith Ogoke, who was nicknamed Nigeria's 'Mike Tyson.'Alas, when the die was cast, the entrants came tumbling one after the other. The most surprising was the performance of Okagbare, who came last in the 100 metres women race after all the hype that followed her participation in the Games.Immediately after the 100 metres race over the weekend, the officials met to plan a way to stem the tide that threatens to envelop all that is left of Nigeria here in London. First in the new agenda is how to ensure that the women 4X100 metres relay team and its 4x400 counterpart do not go the way of the other events. But the prognosis does not look bright.Okagbare, on whose shoulders is the task of leading the 4x100 metres team to glory, is nursing a thigh strain which, according to Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), affected her performance in the 100 metres. Oyindamola Osayomi, who hitherto was the leader of the women sprint team, for reasons that neither she nor the officials have explained, is a shadow of her effervescent self.In fact, the All Africa Games 100 metres champion has been so poor in London that she even failed to qualify for the semi-finals of the event. Now, the belief is that if Okagbare does not come out of her 100 metres blues, and other members of the quartet do not lift their game, the country might as well forget the bronze in the event, as gold and silver might be beyond them going by the form the Jamaican and American girls.That leaves Chika Chukwumerije and Issah Adam Mohammed in taekwondo and Okagbare (again) in the long jump. Nigeria's Edith Ogoke yesterday progressed to the quarter-final stage of the women middleweight boxing event while Maryam Usman failed to shine in the weightlifting event, once again denting the country's image in London.But even at that, officials of the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) insist that the country has not done badly considering its circumstance. In the midst of the all round failure, the question now on the officials' lips is, 'who will bail the cat.'An emergency measure adopted by the NOC, according to a source close to the team, is to send psychologists and relations of the remaining athletes to psyche them up and possibly drive them to go beyond their abilities for success. But the official confessed that, 'it is a hard task managing a damaged campaign.'''We knew the limitations of most of the athletes but we were hopeful that the strong ones would drag the others along. Now that even those we hoped on for success have crumbled, things have become very difficult,' the official said.''Before these Games started, I mean during preparations, we debated whether it would not be better for us to train Okagbare solely for the long jump, 200 metres and the relays because she is good in these events.'We realised that she is a slow starter with great speed and we felt it was better suited for the 200 metres, which has a longer distance and more time to recover from a slow start. But some people felt she could do everything, now we are facing the danger of losing everything.''But there are positives from these Games. You see we have three genuinely young athletes in Gloria Asunmu, Regina George and Omolara Omotosho. They were in the semi-finals of their events and given the right training in the next three years, they would do better at the Brazil 2016 Games.'The official spoke further: ''Then there is the basketball team. These are young talented Nigerians happy representing their country. They are the least experienced of all the teams here and if we get their training right next time, they will challenge the Americans.'It is good that we have a Nations Cup competition next year, so that and other competitions will keep them busy and help build them into a strong unit. Another advantage is that the basketball performance has started drawing other athletes of Nigerian parentage in the Diaspora back to the country, so we will have a rich pool to draw from in the future, but that is only if we manage our things well.''Nevertheless, pleading anonymity, an official blamed the Federal Government for the failure because, ''you cannot excel when you are not prepared for the competition.'' According to the official, ''the usual practice in Nigeria is for people to blame the officials and even call for their sack when Nigeria fumbles in competitions, but nobody bothers to find out the level of investment and time of such investment on the team.''The Olympic Games is a fourth year event and serious countries begin preparation for it as soon as one ends. But in Nigeria we don't do anything until three months to the competition. When you release money to the National Sports Commission just months before the Games, you are telling them to do anything they like with the money because it will not be useful for the preparation of the team.'Nigeria is the only country in the world where sports budgets are released on the year of competition. When you release money for training tour three months before the competition, all you are telling the athletes is that you are not ready for medals. You don't expect them to perform magic within so short a time.''A National Sports Commission official here, who also pleaded anonymity, told The Guardian that the National Planning Commission (NPC) has no basis to hold the Sports Ministry liable for the failure in London because it contributed to the woes.''The Planning Commission told us to project the number and categories of medals we will win in the Olympics and we promised four based on their fulfillment of certain conditions,' the official said. ''One of the conditions was the release of funds on time for training and they agreed before we signed the document.'But we did not get the money on time and the result is the poor outing here in London. They did not fulfill their own side of the bargain. I just pray that they will learn from this debacle and do things properly next time, beginning from when we get home after these Games.
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