AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
As the Summer Olympics draw to a close today, Nigeria had one of its worst records ever. Despite high hopes, the country did not win a single medal. Athletes say the problem is they've been let down by the nation's sports officials. NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu joins us from Lagos to explain why. Good morning, Emmanuel.
EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: Good morning, Ayesha.
RASCOE: Why are some of Nigeria's athletes blaming officials for the team's poor showing?
AKINWOTU: What's happened, sadly, is that Nigerian athletes competing at the highest stage are saying, essentially, they've been let down by mismanagement and negligence from Nigerian authorities. You know, one example of that that's caused major upset here is the case of a Nigerian woman, a sprinter, Favour Ofili. She had high hopes of challenging for a medal in the women's 100 meters. She was one of the fastest women this year heading into the race. But in the end, she couldn't even compete.
She ended up posting on X, formerly Twitter, saying that Nigerian Olympics officials basically failed to register her for the event and that this wasn't the first time she was being let down. Actually, at the Tokyo Games four years ago, she was one of 10 Nigerian athletes who weren't even able to compete because Nigerian Olympics officials failed to organize doping tests or the tests they organized didn't meet international standards.
In Paris, she was registered for the 200 meters, where she came sixth, but in the aftermath of that race, you could see the toll on her. And journalists recorded her as she came off the track.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
FAVOUR OFILI: (Crying).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It's OK.
OFILI: (Crying).
AKINWOTU: And what makes this even sadder is that journalists who were there said there were no Nigerian staff around to console her at that moment.
RASCOE: Wow. I mean, that's really sad. Have there been other issues like this during the games?
AKINWOTU: Well, there was a Nigerian cyclist who actually had to borrow a bike from the German team, and that caused huge outrage on social media. Nigerian officials later explained this was actually because she was suddenly entered into a different race that she hadn't prepared for because another country was disqualified, which led to an opening.
But people have been really cynical about that explanation in part because of so many of the other issues that have gone on. The preparation for the Games was very poor. Some athletes said that Nigeria only provided a training camp for a short period of time before the Games.
What's added insult to injury, as you might say in Nigeria, is that there have been examples of Nigerian dual-national athletes thriving for other countries, like Annette Echikunwoke. She's a hammer thrower for the U.S. team. She wasn't able to compete for Nigeria in Tokyo because her doping tests weren't done properly. She then switched to the U.S., and she's won a silver medal this time, you know, the first for the U.S. ever in this competition. And compounding all of this is that Nigeria didn't produce a single medal at all in these Olympic games, and it's led to huge criticism of the sports officials here.
RASCOE: Have Nigerian officials responded to what is happening? What have they said?
AKINWOTU: Well, a Nigerian sports minister admitted that it's been disastrous but also said that they've been unfairly maligned and that things will change for the better. But it's clear that these issues are systemic. There have been athletes questioning whether the funds released for their activities have been embezzled. You know, there have been poor facilities, poor logistics criticized by some of these athletes, failures in simply registering some of them.
And a lot of these failings are happening at a time of intense scrutiny and criticism of the government. There have been these large antigovernment protests around the country because of a major economic crisis at the moment and also a crisis of confidence in the government and frustration with corruption. People have been raising similar failings that these Nigerian athletes know all too well. I spoke to Osasu Obayiuwana, a Nigerian sports journalist covering the games.
OSASU OBAYIUWANA: Sport and society are intertwined. The country's politics, its economics, which has led a good number of Nigerian people to demonstrate against the government - these are things which go to the root of what the athletes are feeling as well.
AKINWOTU: So these challenges basically just reflect the very difficult issues many Nigerians are fed up with right now.
RASCOE: NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu in Lagos. Thank you so much for joining us.
AKINWOTU: Thanks for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANDRES JACQUE'S "DARK WAVES") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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