Nigeria's only individual Olympic gold medalist on CNN

[lorenzo]

Thumbs up to her

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/in ... ajunwa.cnn

[Oba]

She is NOT Nigeria's only Olympic gold medalist. She's the only female gold medalist, as well as the only Nigerian to hold a gold medal in an individual event. Nigeria also won Gold in the football event of Atlanta '96, as well as the 4x400m men's relay in Sydney 2000.

[Oba]

She is NOT Nigeria's only Olympic gold medalist. She's the first gold medalist, the only female gold medalist, as well as the only Nigerian to hold a gold medal in an individual event. Nigeria also won Gold in the football event of Atlanta '96, as well as the 4x400m men's relay in Sydney 2000.

[lorenzo]

She is NOT Nigeria's only Olympic gold medalist. She's the first gold medalist, the only female gold medalist, as well as the only Nigerian to hold a gold medal in an individual event. Nigeria also won Gold in the football event of Atlanta '96, as well as the 4x400m men's relay in Sydney 2000.

Technically, yes you are right. She's the only individual gold medalist. By the way, Nigeria only "won"the Sidney 2000 4x400 men's relay gold this month.

[Super Eagle]

I remember her - Chioma Ajunwa. She's awesome....very talented and versatile athlete too. She's a world class sprinter, long jumper, and soccer player.!

Kudos to her

[Avayi]

I remember her - Chioma Ajunwa. She's awesome....very talented and versatile athlete too. She's a world class sprinter, long jumper, and soccer player.!

Kudos to her

But she was a drugs cheat!!

http://www.athleticsafrica.com/www2/new ... t/751.html

[Molue Conductor]

I remember her - Chioma Ajunwa. She's awesome....very talented and versatile athlete too. She's a world class sprinter, long jumper, and soccer player.!

Kudos to her

But she was a drugs cheat!!

http://www.athleticsafrica.com/www2/new ... t/751.html

shhh...

These are the same ppl crucifying Gatlin

[lorenzo]

I remember her - Chioma Ajunwa. She's awesome....very talented and versatile athlete too. She's a world class sprinter, long jumper, and soccer player.!

Kudos to her

But she was a drugs cheat!!

http://www.athleticsafrica.com/www2/new ... t/751.html

I think you should watch it and hear her side of the story. I tend to believe she inadvertently took banned substances.

[Metho scorpion]

I remember her - Chioma Ajunwa. She's awesome....very talented and versatile athlete too. She's a world class sprinter, long jumper, and soccer player.!

Kudos to her

But she was a drugs cheat!!

http://www.athleticsafrica.com/www2/new ... t/751.html

I think you should watch it and hear her side of the story. I tend to believe she inadvertently took banned substances.

...thanks for this Ajunwa clip Lorenzo...pay no attention to those calling her drug head...someone that does not even know what it means to win Olympic Gold medal go dey take any enhancement...? yeye minds are here...maybe the Kenyans, Ethopians, Uganda are also on drug since ages past...as long as they keep to long distance and never bother Westerners, no one go point false finger at them...yeye games fully biased...why not introduce sack race or sprint with egg on spoon...?

[smartbrother]

I tend to believe she inadvertently took banned substances.

two times?

[lorenzo]

I tend to believe she inadvertently took banned substances.

two times?

Pray tell. When was the second time? As far as I know, she was banned for 4 years in 1992 for failing a test. Even if she had deliberately done it, by 1996 she would have been sober and competed clean and fair. I am sure there must have been extensive tests conducted on her in 1996 especially because of the previous incident and she came out clean. Whatever the case may have been, she's currently doing something noteworthy with her foundation.

[Damunk]

I tend to believe she inadvertently took banned substances.

two times?

Pray tell. When was the second time? As far as I know, she was banned for 4 years in 1992 for failing a test. Even if she had deliberately done it, by 1996 she would have been sober and competed clean and fair. I am sure there must have been extensive tests conducted on her in 1996 especially because of the previous incident and she came out clean. Whatever the case may have been, she's currently doing something noteworthy with her foundation.

KPOM

[smartbrother]

I tend to believe she inadvertently took banned substances.

two times?

Pray tell. When was the second time? As far as I know, she was banned for 4 years in 1992 for failing a test. Even if she had deliberately done it, by 1996 she would have been sober and competed clean and fair. I am sure there must have been extensive tests conducted on her in 1996 especially because of the previous incident and she came out clean. Whatever the case may have been, she's currently doing something noteworthy with her foundation.

"Luckily, I won two gold medals at the 1991 All Africa Games in Cairo. Five years later, I became an Olympic champion, got a national award and my life was never the same again."

But Ajunwa-Okpara, who won the long jump in Atlanta, USA, was given a life ban by the IAAF in 2002 after being found guilty of using a performance-enhancing substance

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 404624.stm

Learn to do some research before posting. She was a drugs cheat plain and simple

[smartbrother]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Naija-news/message/2664


Sad End To A Promising Career

Chioma Ajunwa's track career which has witnessed a lot of ups and downs was finally truncated last week as the IAAF banned her for life from competing in its organised competitions. OLUKAYODE THOMAS reports.

WITH Chioma Ajunwa's track career, there is a good script to produce a tear-inspiring movie. Here is an athlete whose story should have been one of the most uplifting tales of triumph over hardship to children by moonlight, especially, those who desire a career in athletics.

Four years after her track epitaph was written by all and sundry, Ajunwa came back from the land of the dead to beat a tough field that included Italian Fiona May, the World champion then, American Jackie Joyner-Kersee and other world beaters to win the long jump gold medal at the Atlanta '96 Olympic games.

It was not just another gold medal, it was Nigeria's first since she joined the modern Olympic family at Helsinki'52 games. Coming a few hours before the Dream Team's gold medal, Ajunwa's feat saved other sports from being consigned to the dustbin.

With life ban slapped on her last weekend, Ajunwa's career which had been in the doldrums for about three years before it witnessed a revival last winter, has now been sent to the athletics archives.

After a splendid performance at the Indoor meet, athletics buffs and journalists gave the 2002 outdoor circuit to Ajunwa. Many predicted she would not only win only grand prix meetings, she boasted that she would win Commonwealth and IAAF world cup gold medal in her specialty, the long jump. Then the bubble burst, an in-competition test revealed that Ajunwa had been romancing with performance enhancing drugs.

Those familiar with Ajunwa's athletics career were not taken aback by the sudden change of fortune. For Ajunwa, life on the track had been a roller coaster from infancy.

From 1992 when she came into limelight, Ajunwa's track life had never sailed smoothly. She was either failing dope tests, winning medals today, fighting officials over allowances and bonuses, fighting for her training grants or medical bills. It has been one step forward, two steps backward.

Ajunwa had taken the world by storm in April 1992, an Olympic year, when she returned 10.84 secs, at a local classic in Lagos. Athletics journalists from different parts of the world came to Nigeria to interview the greenhorn that had all it takes to beat Gail Devers, Gwen Torrance, and Merlene Ottey, at the Barcelona'92 Olympic Games.

Ajunwa was not only a star on the track, she also bestrode the field like a colossus, long-jumping over 7.00m, a mark that could also give her the Olympic gold medal in the long jump.

Then came 1992 Mobil Track and Field Championship which served as trials for the Olympic games. Before the emergence of Ajunwa, Mary Onyali was the queen of sprints. Her dominance of the 100m and 200m was total. Great sprinters like Faith Idehen, Charity - Thompson, Falilat Ogunkoya, Rufina Ubah, Mary Tombiri, Tyna Iheagwam and many others bowed at her sprinting powers.

Then, Onyali's rivals fought for the silver and bronze medals, the gold medal is for the queen. But the emergence of Ajunwa really threw Onyali off balance. Will a new queen emerge, will Onyali retain her crown?

On the D-day, a new queen did emerge, but her reign did not last till noon. Sample of Ajunwa's urine taken during the championship revealed that her performance at the championship was aided by drugs.

Alongside Tyna Iheagwam, Charity Opara, Innocent Asonze and Clement Chukwu, she was promptly banned from competing in any IAAF organised competitions for four years.

They all screamed blue murder. They threatened court action. Some actually went to court. The Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Ajunwa's constituency, went s step further, that the process was fraudulent and done to favour a particular athlete.

After the hue and cry, Ajunwa went home to lick her wounds. But help did come for her. Segun Odegbami, her manager got assistance from Industrial and General Insurance Company. He also contacted Mr. Oluyomi Adeyemi-Wilson of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited.

With their assistance, Ajunwa was able to get funds to train in Lagos. At the Atlanta '96 Olympics Games trials, Ajunwa downplayed any talk of rivalry with Onyali. "She has been training and competing for four years, the only thing I do is train. So you can't talk of rivalry."

Ajunwa quietly made the Olympic team, with coaching tutorials from Cuba-born, Jorge Diaz. She concentrated on the long jump. At the Olympics, the rejected stone, became the house corner stone as Ajunwa made a mess of the bookform to win the long jump gold medal in an African record of 7.12m.

There was celebration across the country. Ajunwa returned home a heroine. Cash awards and chieftaincy titles were bestowed upon her. Nigerians tried to outdo one another to honour her, naming of s streets, promotion by police.

But no sooner had she crossed the bridge that her true character started to manifest. Once she became the World Champion, she dumped Odegbami her manager in those dark days for German Robert Wagner, the manager of Donovan Bailey, Heilke Dressler. the Ezinwa twins Osmond and Davidson.

Although, she won a silver medal in the long jump at Paris '97 IAAF World Indoor Championship, she never climbed the podium again at the global level.

1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, and even 2002 were seasons she would have loved to forget in a hurry. What followed were controversies and injuries.

At the Athens '97 World championship, Ajunwa, then nursing an injury, was advised by her coach Diaz to concentrate on the long jump. She had jumped 7.01m in the run up to the finals, the best jump in the world that year.

But because of what some called greed to share in the prize money of $80,000, $60,000 and $40,000 for relay medals, and what others called patriotism, Ajunwa combined both events. She aggravated her injury in the process.When Diaz mooted the idea of Ajunwa training in Cuba with Ivan Pedroso and other best jumpers in the world, she forwarded the bill to the government. When government failed to pick up the bill, she jettisoned the idea.

After her injury, she complained at every given opportunity that the government had used and dumped her. When the government was pushed to the wall, they opened the book which revealed that Ajunwa got over N5 million from her State Government and the Federal Ministry of Sports. An embarrassed Nigeria Police Force banned Ajunwa from granting press interviews.

At the Sevilla '99 World Championship, Ajunwa made the team but refused to jump in Sevila for personal reasons. She failed to defend her title at the Sydney 2000 Games. Just when everybody had given up on her, Ajunwa returned with a bang during the 2002 Indoor season. In the long jump and the 60m, she was the girl to beat. After a successful indoor, many posited she would re-enact her 1996 form outdoor.

But it was not to be. Ajunwa, early in the outdoor season, went for a meet in Greece. Sample of her urine revealed performance-enhancing drugs in the system.

Not wanting to put her eggs in one basket, Ajunwa started expanding her merchandise business in Maryland. She also concentrated on her importation of used fridges, and other electronics from Europe.

[lorenzo]

Learn from My Mistakes - Ajunwa.

ATLANTA 1996 Olympics gold medallist, Mary Chioma Ajunwa, has cautioned Team Nigeria’s athletes to learn from her mistakes and avoid using performance-enhancing drugs.

Speaking on the news of the three Nigerians dropped from the London 2012 Olympics for drug-related issues, Ajunwa, now a senior police office, said that using drugs in major competitions has negative effect on the user and the country, adding that the post-competition trauma alone is usually devastating.

“It was a sad news for the country as a whole, but I hope the disgrace would serve as a deterrent to other athletes,” she said. “They should try not to make the kind of mistake I made because the trauma from the ban will not be pleasant.”

The multi-talented athlete believes that Nigeria can excel at the Games without using drugs, adding, however, that the athletes should be confident in their abilities if they desired success.

According to her, Team Nigeria can only excel if the athletes harbour no fear of the opposition because “self-belief is one of the ingredients for success.” She said further: “Nigerians like late preparation, but we have great athletes, and strong ones for that matter. I think they have improved tremendously such that they will cause upsets at the Olympics.

“They have to be focused at all times because being in such a strong competition requires all the energy and psychological balance the athletes can muster. Of course, the Olympic fever alone makes some athletes fumble, but my prayer is that none of them will fumble, with God on their side.”

Ajunwa, who won Nigeria’s first individual Olympic gold medal at Atlanta ’96, added: “I have the belief that Blessing Okagbare, among others, will excel because of her level of preparation, and then such events as boxing, taekwondo and the likes, can pull surprises.”

[lorenzo]

Banned twice or not doesn't obliterate the fact that she won her gold medal very fairly, a feat that no other Nigerian has been able to achieve in over 50 years. More importantly is her current role in trying to educate and inspire the next generation to compete fairly. Like I said earlier, from the interview, I saw a woman who is genuinely committed to a good cause and is passionately going about executing it. She ought to be commended rather than been castigated.

[mcal]

...was the banned stuff intentional or accidental, because shiit happens around this guys.

[smartbrother]

Banned twice or not doesn't obliterate the fact that she won her gold medal very fairly, a feat that no other Nigerian has been able to achieve in over 50 years. More importantly is her current role in trying to educate and inspire the next generation to compete fairly. Like I said earlier, from the interview, I saw a woman who is genuinely committed to a good cause and is passionately going about executing it. She ought to be commended rather than been castigated.

she was banned for life by iaaf. that is a disgrace if you ask me

[lorenzo]

Banned twice or not doesn't obliterate the fact that she won her gold medal very fairly, a feat that no other Nigerian has been able to achieve in over 50 years. More importantly is her current role in trying to educate and inspire the next generation to compete fairly. Like I said earlier, from the interview, I saw a woman who is genuinely committed to a good cause and is passionately going about executing it. She ought to be commended rather than been castigated.

she was banned for life by iaaf. that is a disgrace if you ask me

Yes, it was a disgrace. I however still maintain that even if she intentionally doped in 1992 ad 2002, she won her medal on merit in 1996. Moreover, she has realised her mistakes and is going about trying to make sure that others don't go down the same path. What more can you ask for? Rather than moan and dwell on the disgrace (like you are doing), she's moved on and she's trying to take the positives out of the situation and make other people better for it! I'm sure CNN knew about her bans and all before arranging for her to be interviewed. They however also see beyond her past and see what hope she represents for the future.