All eyes on Team Nigeria as African Games begin

As the 13th African Games officially begins on Friday (today) in Ghana, attention will be on Team Nigeria to continue their impressive performance among the 53 countries at the Games, having featured in all the editions since its inception in 1965, The According reports.

The 2023 Games hold in Ghana till March 23 across three cities Accra, Cape Coast and Kumasi.

For this year’s edition, there are 358 Nigerian athletes vying for medals in 25 sports among the 23 main events and seven demonstration sports in Ghana. Some of the events, such as athletics, badminton, cycling, boxing, swimming, table tennis and triathlon will serve as qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Events like table tennis, badminton, cricket and football started before today’s opening ceremony.

In the history of the Games, Nigeria has usually impressed and are second in the overall medals table behind Egypt with 1,326 medals comprising 470 gold, 428 silver as well as 428 bronze and expectations are high about sustaining the momentum in Ghana.

Former Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Olympic Committee, Phemmy Adetula, is confident that the contingent will not disappoint Nigerians.

“Our area of strength has been athletics, boxing, wrestling, weightlifting and even table tennis. So, this edition will not be an exception. I was hoping Edem and Aruna Quadri would win the singles titles in the table tennis event but that remains one of the areas Egypt usually dominate at the Games. So, in order to beat them in future Games, we have to build sports like fencing, where they pack medals,” Adetula said.

“I also like what the AFN is doing by going with some home-based athletes and I don’t think that will hinder their chances. We have African champions and world champions and this is how we can also test the strength of the upcoming ones.”

Nigerian female wrestlers, Blessing Oborududu and Odunayo Adekuoroye are also some of the favourites to continue their dominance on the continent and they are joined by two debutants as Nigeria hopes to do a clean sweep of medals in female wrestling.

“We still have the African Championships and other 2024 Olympic Games qualifying series coming up after this, so, we are also using the African Games to measure up while we hope to do better than our previous outings. In fact, we want to do six over six. This time around we have two debutants in Esther Kolawole and Christianah Ogunsanya,” female wrestling coach Purity Akuh told The According.

Cricket is one of the sports debuting at the Games, with Nigeria’s male and female teams in contention for a 2028 Olympic Games spot.

President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation, Uyi Akpata, also expects the teams to scale their daunting tests against some of the best teams on the continent at the Games.

“We are very optimistic about our chances. Irrespective of what happens at the Games in Accra, we fancy the fact that in just a short while, our two national teams are ranked well enough to merit the place at the continental event. I can also tell you that we are not going to make up numbers, we have what it takes to make a statement and even win medals,” Akpata told The According.

At the first edition in 1965 in Congo Brazzaville, Nigeria finished second with a total of 19 medals behind the then United Arab Republic. At the last edition in Morocco, the country also finished second behind Egypt with 127 medals altogether (46 gold, 33 silver and 48 bronze).