FG apologises to Nigerians over athletes’ poor performance in Olympic Games
The Federal Government has tendered apology to Nigerians for the Nigerian athletes’ woeful performance in the just-concluded 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France.
The Nigerian contingent failed to win any medal at the world’s biggest sporting event.
Recall that the last time Nigeria returned from an Olympics game without a medal was in 2012.
The Minister of Sports Development, Senator John Enoh, who tendered the apology in a post on X yesterday, expressed regret that Nigeria’s performance fell below expectations and the objectives of Nigeria’s participation in the tournament.
”The Olympic Games, Paris 2024, has ended and I accept that our performance should have been a lot better. It obviously fell short of our objectives, expectations and hopes of Nigerians,” Enoh said.
”I must apologize to our compatriots and reflect on what went wrong while looking forward to the Paralympic Games, Paris 2024,” he added.
While explaining some factors ahead of Nigeria’s outing in the encounter, the minister noted that the preparations had not begun when he assumed office in August 2023.
According to him, President Bola Tinubu guaranteed funding to inspire a successful outing.
The minister, however, expressed delight that, despite the athletes’ woeful outing, Nigerians and they in particular, had learnt a lot of lessons that called for improvements ahead of the next tournament.
”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. The next two Olympics after that we’ve had a bronze medal in 2016 and a silver and bronze in the 2020 Olympics. ”As a country, we deserve more,” he said.
Enoh therefore called on Nigerians to take solace in the failure and turn it to a positive development for the Nigerian sports.
Let’s turn the disastrous outing of the 2024 Olympics to a huge positive outcome for Nigerian sports,” he stressed.
The minister, however, promised a comprehensive review of the outing to determine the factors responsible for the poor performance and how to improve in the next tournament.
”As a responsible organisation, we have swung into a review process. We shall evaluate the competition readiness of every athlete comprehensively, including their injuries and medical history within the limits of patient confidentiality. The role of coaches and administrative staff will also be examined,” he said.
