Disappointing Olympics: Minister apologises, vows comprehensive review

Minister of Sports Development, Senator John Owan-Enoh, has apologised for the disappointing performance of Team Nigeria at the Paris 2024 Olympics and promised a comprehensive review.

Team Nigeria, despite the huge financial investment made into the project, is returning from the Paris 2024 Olympics without a single medal.

Owan-Enoh, reacting to Nigeria’s woeful performance, said he held extensive discussions with the management staff of the Ministry and learned that preparations for the Olympics, which was less than a year away, had not started.

READ ALSO: Like protesters, I’m frustrated, Senator Kingibe tells Tinubu

“In the true Nigerian spirit, it was our view that we should spare no effort to sustain the international sports image of our country,” he said on X.

“Our target was to re-enact the Atlanta 1996 performance or even improve on it. To this end, we embarked on a progressive approach to drive forward the performance of our athletes and coaches.

“To achieve our targets, we approved onshore training in different locations in the country, in addition to the offshore training camps for our teams in Saarbrucken, Germany, and Sevilla, Spain. Ten out of the eleven sports trained in Germany.

“In all these, the President and Commander in Chief of the Federation, HE Bola Ahmed Tinubu, ensured that funds were not a limiting factor. Athletes’ competition requirements were provided, allowances were paid early, and training grants were disbursed to all athletes.

“I made myself readily available to deal with any issue throughout the competition. Therefore, the underwhelming performance of our team is puzzling. We owe Nigerians an explanation.

“As a responsible organisation, we have swung into a review process. We shall evaluate the competition readiness of every athlete comprehensively, including their injury and medical history within the limits of patient confidentiality.

“The role of coaches and administrative staff will also be examined. There must be a lot of lessons to learn from our performance, and improvements must be made in all ramifications.

“The last time we returned from the Olympics without a medal was in 2012. In the next two Olympics after that, we had a bronze medal in 2016 and a silver and bronze in the 2020 Olympics.

“As a country, we deserve more. Let’s turn the disastrous outcome of the 2024 Olympics into a huge positive for Nigerian sports.”

The Federal Government reportedly invested about N12 billion in this year’s Olympics, which is almost twice the amount budgeted for the entire Ministry of Science and Technology for 2024.

This is also over N136 million (about $85,000) spent on each of the 88 Nigerian contingent to the Olympics, but no single medal was won.