The London 2012 Olympics will go down in history as the best sporting event ever held in Great Britain. Among several wonders of the Olympics, the 17-day event recorded amazing new 25 world records which, included Kenya’s David Rudisha’s 800-metre feat and Jamaican men’s 4x100m relay victory.
The Beijing 2008 Olympics had the highest number of world record feats, 37.
Right from the official start of the Olympics on August 27, many sport fans around the world had held the belief that it would be a successful fiesta. They were not wrong. It was the third time London would host the Games after the first it in 1908 and later in 1948.
The fear of possible terror attacks had necessitated the tight security at the Games but that did not hinder the spectacular showings on the tracks and at the various venues.
There were 8.8 million tickets for the Games. 1.6 million of the number was sold out for the football event alone while the 80,000-capacity Olympic stadium, which is the third largest in England, was at full capacity during the opening ceremony and the athletics events.
While the Beijing Olympics cost $42bn, the $15bn spent on London 2012 was considered staggering by analysts.
The 1996 Olympics in Atlanta cost$2bn, while the Sydney 2000 gulped up to $4.8bn. Over $32bn was spent on Athens 2004, a figure that plunged the small European nation into economic woes in later years.
But while Britain is left to put the figures together after the 10,500 athletes must have left, the host nation will also have to contend with managing the success of the Games and deciding what to do with the facilities.
The Olympic Stadium, built purposely for the Games, will henceforth be used by West Ham United, who won the bid to rent it. But the other facilities like the basketball arena will be dismantled – this is expected to eliminate maintenance cost.
Unlike Britons who are counting the gains of the Games in terms of finishing third in the medals table with a total of 65 medals, Nigerians are left to rue their participation in the Games. With N1.9bn spent on featuring 55 athletes in eight sports, anyone would have believed Team Nigeria would finish with an appreciable number of medals. The team will be returning home without a single medal.
Nigeria had the best athletes the various sport federations could lay their hands on. The men’s 100m had the fastest men in the country just as the women’s version, but none was as good as the past kings and queens of the tracks.
To many who followed Nigeria’s athletics, it was almost predictable that Nigeria would not come close to winning medals in athletics at the London Games, at least not with the performances of the athletes at recent events.
In the 100m, Olusoji Fasuba’s 9.85 seconds has yet to be broken in Nigeria’s records, same as Francis Obikwelu’s 19.84 seconds in the 200m event. The best of 400m finish was by Innocent Egbunike in 44.17, while Henry Amike’s 48.50 in 400m hurdles remains Nigeria’s best.
When Blessing Okagbare ran her personal best of 10.93 in the heat in London, her fans were happy but some pundits were not. The time was well below Chioma Ajunwa’s 10.84seconds set in 1992.
The only marathoner, Esther Obiekwe, is a banker and only engages in athletics as a hobby but she happened to be the only one in Nigeria that met the Olympic qualifying time.
In fact, none of the athletes was tipped to win medals in London except for the indoor sportsmen which included Chika Chukwumerije in taekwondo and Sinivie Boltic in wrestling. Unfortunately, they both failed in their events.
Many have proposed why Nigeria failed at the London Games but none captured it so succinctly as former Congolese-born NBA star Dikembe Mutombo. He described Nigeria’s basketball team, D’Tigers, as star struck during the Games.
He said in the UK America Sports, “If you look at the way they (Nigeria) ran their offence, you can give them a little bit of credit. Defensively, I think they were more intimidated than the players who play on such a big stage every given night. And some of the players from Nigeria, they were just fans. They were happy to be in the Olympics but for them it was a glory day to be playing the same court with the NBA players.
“They didn’t know if their mind should be on the game or ‘get a picture of me playing Kobe Bryant or Lebron’. I think that’s where they lost their mind a little bit.”
This indeed summarised how many of the athletes featured in their events. Running with Usain Bolt could have distracted Ogho-Oghene Egwero, for instance.
What is left for the Nigerian athletes and administrators is to go back to the drawing board and make plans for the next Games. There are still four years to Rio2016 and two years to the next Commonwealth Games. Curiously, and sadly too, this has always been the advice after each poor outing by Nigeria. And there have been too many poor outings!
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