One of Nigeria’s campaigners in badminton at the ongoing Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, Godwin Olofua has come out with a daring declaration that all opposition he and his colleagues faced were not spectacular.
Although the Nigerian men lost out in singles and doubles vents in quick succession this week, Olofua has declared that the only edge their foes from Japan, China and England had over them was better preparations.
Megasportsarena.com gatheerd that the enterprising lad pointed out that Nigeria is well respected as current African doubles champion, but added that they need to improve in terms of facilities, training programmes, exposure of players and adequate welfare packages.
While admitting that all other teams they met in The Land of The Rising Sun had those factors in abundance, Olofua attributed lack of training tours and inadequate outings at championships on the global scale made the badminton team stumble at Tokyo 2020.
His verdict comes after world men’s team number four, Yuta Watanabe and Hiroyuki Endo of Japan beat Olofua and Anuoluwapo Opeyori 21-2, 21-17 in their first game, after which they also lost to Denmark’s Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen 21-7, 21-10.
The duo’s female compatriot, Dorcas Adesokan also lost 21-3, 21-6 to South Korea’s An Seyoung in her second group game in the women’s singles to add to the sour tale emerging for Nigeria in the request sport event.
Olofua and Opeyori then lost their third match to world number 12, Ivan Sozonov and Vladimir Ivanov 21-8, 21-10, but he is still picking positives, while recalling that his Olympics dream was made possible by the efforts of some renowned stakeholders in Nigerian badminton.
He mentioned the former president of Badminton Federation of Nigeria (BFN), Francis Orbih and some individuals with profound interest in the sport, then promised that preparations will start in earnest for him and other players of the country towards the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
The 2019 African Games silver medalist, however, concluded by expressing delight with the opportunity he got of playing against some of the best badminton players in the world during the competition in Japan, even as he believes the Nigerian team can perform better than they did.
Olofua told www.aclsports.com: “The only way we can improve our performance at the forthcoming Commonwealth Games is to play more tournaments, attend training tours for a year.
“If we attending enough training tours, the level of our standard will improve drastically and match other highly ranked players in the World.
“We have the passion and mindset to achieve greatness, to do well and represent our country. If we do not have quality training and adequate training tours, we will continue to struggle to win these top players.
“If the Federal Government, State Government and Private Sectors see us as priority, we will match up to other badminton players in the World.
“I strongly believe if the nation puts proper machinery in place, we will do well at Paris 2024 Olympics. Playing in the Olympics is an amazing experience for me because this is the biggest game ever in the World.
“I really enjoyed myself while playing on the court against World number 4 double players, Yuta Watanabe and Hiroyuki Endo; I played freely without any tension despite the fact that we were a little bit nervous in the first game.
“Playing against the best in the world is a memorable and big achievement. While playing on the court, my heart was filled with joy: it is a pleasure playing against the Japanese because this is the first time we are facing them.
“There is nothing spectacular about the Chinese, Japanese and English teams; all they have is consistent training programs, good facilities, proper welfare packages and they are properly taken care off.”
