The Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) has vowed to end the country’s 2024 search for Olympic gold medals at the upcoming Paris 2024 Games in Paris.
NOC President Habu Gumel made the pledge after receiving the reports of the constitution review committee and a review of the Refurbishment of Sports Infrastructure at the Amuwo Odofin Olympic Sports Village in Amuwo Odofin, Lagos, at the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA) office in Jahi, Abuja, yesterday.
Nigeria’s last Olympics gold medal was won at the Sydney 2000 Games where the nation’s 4x400m men’s team won a silver which was later converted gold by the IOC after the disqualification of the U.S. team for fielding a drug offender in the final race.
Since then, the country has not repeated the feat they first achieved at the Atlanta 1996 Games when Chioma Ajunwa and the men’s football team gave the country two gold medals. But the NOC President Habu Gumel has now assured that Team Nigeria will break the jinx in Paris.
He said the NOC is closely with the Federal Ministry of Sports Development to ensure Nigeria’s journey to the Paris Olympic Games ends in a huge success.
“We are working hand in hand seriously with the Federal Ministry of Sports Development to ensure that our journey to the Paris Olympics will be a huge success. So far, we have qualified 85 athletes for the Paris Games and some of our athletes are still participating in qualifying championships and more qualifications will come in,” Gumel said.
NOC added that plans are underway to take the country’s athletes for training abroad ahead of the commencement of next month’s Olympics.
“Arrangement is being made by the Ministry of Sports Development to take the athletes for a training tour outside the country, though the athletes are already training here and many of them that are outside the country are also training there.
“Some of the federations’ athletes are training here like wrestling, canoeing and some are in Germany, USA and other countries. So, the training is on and all arrangements are geared up to take the athletes when the handover ceremony is done between the Ministry and NOC, and present them to Paris.
We believe that this time around, we will do our best while in Paris to make Nigeria proud. You know what we have been singing all along and the last time we won golds in the Olympics was at Atlanta 1996. All along since Atlanta 96 we have been getting silver and bronze medals, but we’ll break the jinx in Paris.
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