2003 A year of sporting breakthroughs for Nigeria
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2003 A year of sporting breakthroughs for Nigeria
A year of sporting breakthroughs
Temitope Ajayi Writes for Punch.
Calling 2003 a year of breakthroughs in sports would be capturing the situation appropriately. The year saw Nigerian sports breaking new grounds and reaching up to new heights. Even when the year was ending and people were taking stock, fresh feats were still being achieved.
If over the years Nigerians had continued to refer to themselves as giants in Africa, that attribute only acquired its true meaning in October this year when the country's athletes emerged overall winners of the All Africa Games in Abuja.
Since the inception of the competition in 1965, Nigeria had been playing second fiddle to Egypt and with the demise of apartheid, even that second position became threatened when South Africa joined the fray. In Harare, Zimbabwe in1995, 30 years after the first games were held in Brazzaville, Congo, Nigeria could only finish third.
All this, however, changed in Abuja when, with a new concept of Team Nigeria, Nigeria amassed 85 gold, 90 silver and 56 bronze medals to beat back the Egyptians to the second position with 81 gold, 66 silver and 71 bronze medals.
The event itself was a celebration of African culture through sports and an opportunity to sell Nigeria to the rest of the world. A magnificent stadium comparable with what could be found in any part of the world was built and more than 10, 000 foreigners visited the country from October 4 to October 18.
Barely two months after the Abuja feat, Nigeria broke another fresh ground when Enyimba of Aba won the African Champions League by outscoring Egyptian club, Ismailia, 2-1 aggregate. It was the first time a Nigerian club would be winning the competition in its 39 years of existence.
Other notable clubs like Rangers of Enugu, Shooting Stars of Ibadan and Iwuanyanwu Nationale had managed to get to the final without having anything to show for their effort. Enyimba's feat, made possible by their big-spending patron, Dr. Orji Kalu, came as a big surprise to many after the team had suffered a humiliating and scandalous 6-1 defeat in the hands of the same club they defeated in the final.
That victory fetched them a whopping $950, 000 and sundry other amounts coming from the number of goals scored and the number of matches won. With the victory, Nigerians are still searching for the new epithet to replace "elusive" with which they had tagged the competition over the years.
Also significant is the fact that, for the first time, three Nigerian clubs made it to the semifinal level of their continental competitions with Rangers of Enugu, Julius Berger of Lagos and Enyimba contesting simultaneously for honours in the CAF Cup, Winners Cup and Champions League competitions. While Rangers were stopped 4-3 at that stage, Berger got to the final before losing 3-2 to Etoile du Sahel.
And just as the year was coming to an end, the female basketball team went to Mozambique, saw and conquered the continent. For the first time, Nigerian female basketball team are African Nations Cup champions, a victory that qualifies them to represent Africa in the Olympic Games 2004 in Athens, Greece.
The victory tone was set right from the All Africa Games where they won the gold medal for the first time in the event. The First Bank Basketball team followed up with victory at the 10th African Clubs Championships in the same Mozambique weeks after the Abuja 2003 Games. It was also another first.
The year was not without its problems. At the FIFA Under-17 Championship in Finland, Nigeria for the first time failed to go beyond the first round just as the country failed to win a single medal at the World Championships in athletics held in Paris, France. To rub salt into the wounds, athletes who were duly registered refused to come out for their relay events and, but for some deft diplomatic moves, the country would have earned a ban from the International Association of Athletics Federations.
The anticlimax to the excitement of the All Africa Games was the destruction of the velodrome at the National Stadium, Abuja. On the very day the All Africa Games came to an end, a windstorm struck the complex, the first of its kind in the country, and left it in ruins even before it was handed over by the builders, Julius Berger.
Temitope Ajayi Writes for Punch.
Calling 2003 a year of breakthroughs in sports would be capturing the situation appropriately. The year saw Nigerian sports breaking new grounds and reaching up to new heights. Even when the year was ending and people were taking stock, fresh feats were still being achieved.
If over the years Nigerians had continued to refer to themselves as giants in Africa, that attribute only acquired its true meaning in October this year when the country's athletes emerged overall winners of the All Africa Games in Abuja.
Since the inception of the competition in 1965, Nigeria had been playing second fiddle to Egypt and with the demise of apartheid, even that second position became threatened when South Africa joined the fray. In Harare, Zimbabwe in1995, 30 years after the first games were held in Brazzaville, Congo, Nigeria could only finish third.
All this, however, changed in Abuja when, with a new concept of Team Nigeria, Nigeria amassed 85 gold, 90 silver and 56 bronze medals to beat back the Egyptians to the second position with 81 gold, 66 silver and 71 bronze medals.
The event itself was a celebration of African culture through sports and an opportunity to sell Nigeria to the rest of the world. A magnificent stadium comparable with what could be found in any part of the world was built and more than 10, 000 foreigners visited the country from October 4 to October 18.
Barely two months after the Abuja feat, Nigeria broke another fresh ground when Enyimba of Aba won the African Champions League by outscoring Egyptian club, Ismailia, 2-1 aggregate. It was the first time a Nigerian club would be winning the competition in its 39 years of existence.
Other notable clubs like Rangers of Enugu, Shooting Stars of Ibadan and Iwuanyanwu Nationale had managed to get to the final without having anything to show for their effort. Enyimba's feat, made possible by their big-spending patron, Dr. Orji Kalu, came as a big surprise to many after the team had suffered a humiliating and scandalous 6-1 defeat in the hands of the same club they defeated in the final.
That victory fetched them a whopping $950, 000 and sundry other amounts coming from the number of goals scored and the number of matches won. With the victory, Nigerians are still searching for the new epithet to replace "elusive" with which they had tagged the competition over the years.
Also significant is the fact that, for the first time, three Nigerian clubs made it to the semifinal level of their continental competitions with Rangers of Enugu, Julius Berger of Lagos and Enyimba contesting simultaneously for honours in the CAF Cup, Winners Cup and Champions League competitions. While Rangers were stopped 4-3 at that stage, Berger got to the final before losing 3-2 to Etoile du Sahel.
And just as the year was coming to an end, the female basketball team went to Mozambique, saw and conquered the continent. For the first time, Nigerian female basketball team are African Nations Cup champions, a victory that qualifies them to represent Africa in the Olympic Games 2004 in Athens, Greece.
The victory tone was set right from the All Africa Games where they won the gold medal for the first time in the event. The First Bank Basketball team followed up with victory at the 10th African Clubs Championships in the same Mozambique weeks after the Abuja 2003 Games. It was also another first.
The year was not without its problems. At the FIFA Under-17 Championship in Finland, Nigeria for the first time failed to go beyond the first round just as the country failed to win a single medal at the World Championships in athletics held in Paris, France. To rub salt into the wounds, athletes who were duly registered refused to come out for their relay events and, but for some deft diplomatic moves, the country would have earned a ban from the International Association of Athletics Federations.
The anticlimax to the excitement of the All Africa Games was the destruction of the velodrome at the National Stadium, Abuja. On the very day the All Africa Games came to an end, a windstorm struck the complex, the first of its kind in the country, and left it in ruins even before it was handed over by the builders, Julius Berger.
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