Obudu Ranch International Mountain Race(11.25km), Okpekpe Road Race (10km), and Lagos City Marathon (42.1km). Who have won all their editions? East Africans: Kenyans, Ethiopians, etc. Who will continue to win all their editions as long as they exist and are open to all countries? East Africans.
In the 2016 Lagos City Marathon, for example, which was the first edition, all the top 10 male winners were Kenyans and Ethiopians, all the 10 female winners but one were also Kenyans and Ethiopians.
There is another constant in these long-distance races regarding Nigeria. Runners from Plateau State are usually the first Nigerians to finish the race. For example, in the 2015 edition of the Okpekpe Road Race, in the men’s category, Emmanuel Gyang from Plateau State finished first and 17th overall, while Gideon Goyet also from Plateau finished second and 18th overall, and William Kefas from Plateau came third and 21st overall. In the Lagos City Marathon, the states of origin of the top Nigerian finishers were not stated, but because they bear names like Pam, Gyang, etc, we can guess that they are from Plateau State. The state has the highest altitude in Nigeria, while the Ethiopian Highlands has the highest altitude in Africa and is sometimes called the Roof of Africa because of its height and large area.
Kenyans and Ethiopians don’t win long-distance races because they train harder than other people from other parts of the world. It is because there is a nexus between altitude and the availability of air or Oxygen molecules. If it were just by hard work, Americans and Europeans would have trained athletes who would beat the East Africans in marathons. That was how Europeans created Catenaccio (also described as “negative football”) as a solution to the dominance of the Brazilians in football, thereby keeping them away from the World Cup victory from 1970 to 1994 when they only managed to beat Italy via penalty shootout. The higher the altitude, the “thinner” the air: that is, there is a reduction in the Oxygen molecules per volume of air. So, someone who is accustomed to living in an area with lower amount of air can cope better when running over long distances without gasping for breath than someone who lives in lower altitude. So, marathon is a race that perfectly suits the East Africans.
The first game that gave us an international gold medal was the high jump. At the 1954 Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, Canada, Emmanuel Ifeajuna won the gold medal and also created the record of becoming the first Black African to win an international gold medal in any event. The first game that gave us an Olympic gold medal was the long jump, which Chioma Ajunwa won at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Nigeria’s second Olympic gold medal was in football, at the same 1996 Olympics. But before we won our first Olympic gold medal, we had been winning bronze and silver medals at the Olympics in boxing and sprints or short-distance races: 100 metres to 400 metres. We also have been dominating Africa in table tennis but have not made a great mark in global table tennis competitions.
All through the 1980s until the mid 1990s – before the Jamaicans emerged to defeat the USA in sprints – Nigeria was usually in the finals of sprints at global championships. The fastest man and woman in Africa were usually Nigerians. That was the era of Chidi Imoh, Mary Onyali, Innocent Egbunike, Falilat Ogunkoya, the Ezinwa twins, Davidson and Osmond, Sunday Bada, Francis Obikwelu and the rest. If we failed to win a medal in the individual events, we never failed to win a silver medal behind the Americans in the relay races because of the number of good sprinters we had. If we had a bad event, we would get a bronze medal in the relay. The cancer that was gradually destroying everything that made us great also affected our feats in the sprints. We continued to drop gradually until Jamaicans and even Ghanaians pushed us out of the short-distance medal table.
In boxing too, we always had our boys losing out narrowly in the finals at the Olympics. The exploits of Peter Konyegwachie and Jerry Okorododu readily come to mind. Even in professional boxing, we have produced some notable names like Dick Tiger, Nojim Maiyegun, Hogan Bassey, Obisia Nwankpa, Bash Ali, Joe Lasisi, David Izonritei, Samuel Peter, among others. Sadly, the nation has failed to support boxing, leading to Nigerians not winning medals in boxing at global events in recent times.
Therefore, why should Nigerian states, reeling under financial pressure for that matter, waste our scarce resources to promote a long-distance race that Nigerians cannot win, no matter how hard we try, when there are sports that we naturally excel in? Is this not another sign of Nigerian politicians loving to start their own charity abroad? It is the same mentality that makes us send our troops to other countries for peace-keeping when our country has no peace. That is why our nation will officially sympathise with other nations when five of their citizens are killed by terrorists but keep quiet when hundreds of our people are killed by terrorists.
The reason given by states for sponsoring marathons, which Kenyans and Ethiopians regularly win, is tourism, but is marathon the only sporting way of promoting tourism? Private organisations can choose to sponsor whatever sporting event or entertainment that will give them the desired visibility and mileage, but government- at the local, state of federal levels – should not be primarily concerned about quick profits. They should be concerned about development: sustainable and meaningful development.
It is tragic that we would participate in a global championship and place all our hopes on one athlete – Blessing Okagbare. And if she fails to live up to expectation, we come back medal-less and angry. Everyone can see the descent in sports that Nigeria is suffering in recent times. We are no longer reckoned with in the sports that we used to dominate in Africa. Even though Nigeria surprisingly won the 2013 African Cup of Nations, we could not qualify for the 2015 and 2017 editions of the competition. Yet, some of our states, in concert with some companies, have the money and energy with which to sponsor marathons that have little or no relevance to us as a people. It’s like abandoning football and sprints that we have natural competence in to sponsor skiing. The implication is that we will lose the sprints and football that we excel in and also fail in the marathon or skiing that we are not created for.
Developed countries like the United States can sponsor marathon, even though they don’t excel in it. They no longer grapple with basic issues like bad roads, dilapidated schools, poorly equipped hospitals, unpaid salaries, lack of potable water, poverty, etc. In addition, they have extra money to play with, and also have the capacity to exploit the commercial benefits of sponsoring such events. But not so for our states, 27 of which are said to be having issues with paying salaries and meeting their needs out of the 36 states.
We must get our priorities right in this nation. We must stop making a mockery of ourselves, trying to do what other countries are doing. Every country has its own peculiar needs. It is after such needs are adequately met that one can start looking at other issues.
PUNCH
END
Be the first to comment