Why Nigeria flopped in athletics
...Igwe, former national athletics coach blasts
By COSMAS OMEGOH

Two weeks after the curtain was brought down on the 29th Olympiad in Beijing, China, a former national athletics coach, Tobias Igwe, continues to rue the country’s woeful performance in athletics at the global showpiece.

Igwe, who coached Nigeria’s athletics contingent to Barcelona’92, Atlanta’96 and Athens 2004 Games, strongly criticised the federal government for failing to release training funds to athletes on time.

The deputy director of sports (Racing Games) in Abia State, lamented the country’s inability to harness the racing potentials of her athletes. He regretted that 12 years after Nigeria won her first gold at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, USA, the country had continued to struggle to win bronze in a sport she could have since strongly established herself in.
“I feel depressed that since we won gold at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, we have not been able to repeat that feat,” Igwe began.

“I was the national athletics coach to three Olympic Games. At Barcelona’92, we won a silver and a bronze medal. At Atlanta’96, we raised the bar by winning one gold, one silver and two bronze medals.

When I returned at the Athens 2004 event, we won just two bronze medals and those medals were christened ‘golden bronze’ medals, because our preparations to that event in Athens was nothing to write home about.

“Four years after that outing, it’s regrettable that we could not prepare well ahead of the next Games in Beijing. It’s unfortunate that we have continuously failed to learn from our mistakes.
“Ahead of every major global sports event, our government always fail to release money to sports associations for them to commence the training of our athletes on time. We gathered that the money meant for the training of athletes could not get to the respective associations in good time before the Beijing Olympics. This is very sad. Athletes around the world usually get their training grants long before any serious competition begins, but in Nigeria, the situation is different.”

Igwe, popularly known as Toblow, said because Nigerian athletes were not given their training grants as and when due, they found it very difficult to hire coaches and nobody supervises them. Besides, they found it difficult to embark on training tours.

“It’s unfortunate that our administrators have failed to understand the plights of our athletes. Our athletes usually begin top-flight athletics at old age. They fail to attain their best in sports because they cannot afford to go on training tours. They cannot attend high-profile competitions. They simply train on their own. They train without engaging in competitions and they hardly make the best out of their efforts.

He continued: “Most of our athletes do not have coaches. Uchenna Emedolu for instance, has not been coached for a long time. I even heard that he’s now a coach to himself. So, tell me, who monitors him and his performance? This is the problem we have in our hands.”
Igwe told Saturday Sunsport that the country was able to get her best in athletics in the past because the then president of Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Dan Ngerem, was paying the Association’s bills before money from government gets to him.

“Before 2002 and 2004, Dan Ngerem was using his money to run athletics in the country, pending when government funds were received. I recall that at a time when we camped in Ibadan, Ngerem had to take care of athletes and paid the electricity bills among other things. He was doing that because he had the money, he had passion for the sport and he was patriotic enough to do that. The seed he sowed then is what we are still reaping till today, yet we were in a hurry to kick him out of the system.”

He noted that if the country were serious about making an impact in athletics, the time to start preparations for the 2012 London Olympic Games should be now. That the likes of Blessing Okgbure, who won gold in long jump at Beijing 2008 ought to be prepared very well to win gold at next Olympics.

“Now is the time to begin the training of those we expect to win medals at next Games. But in our usual ways of doing things, we will wait until it is two weeks to the event before we begin to run helter skelter. Someone like Blessing Okgbure ought to be encouraged now to win old at the next event, but we will not do that,” he regretted.