The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has felicitated the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development on team Nigeria’s successes at the 32nd Olympics which ended in Tokyo, Japan a few days ago.
NFF also congratulated the Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare.
Nigeria won one silver and one bronze medals from the Games.
For the first time since 1996, a Nigerian athlete was in the final of the glamour event of the Games – the men’s 100m sprint. Young hurdler Oluwatobiloba Amusan narrowly missed netting a medal as she finished fourth in the women’s high hurdles final.
A statement attributed to the President of NFF, Amaju Pinnick read, “The Nigeria contingent may not have returned with the harvest of medals that many hoped for, but there are bright lights all around and some brilliant individual performances that give hope for the next Games in Paris. At the end of the day, the silver and bronze medals earned in Tokyo make the just-ended Olympics Nigeria’s best outing in 13 years. That is commendable.
“The Sports Minister, in his personal capacity and the Ministry of Sports as a body worked their socks off. The Honourable Minister was exemplary; he explained, encouraged, and empathized with the athletes as necessary and led the cheer at most of the venues where Nigerian athletes competed.
“He is such a wonderful breath of fresh air from the immediate Minister of Sports who rather constituted himself into a bulwark and divisive force against Nigerian athletes at the last Olympics in Brazil. We do not wish to recall his inglorious remarks against the football team when the team was camping in the USA. That football team eventually ended up winning Team Nigeria’s only medal – a bronze – at the Games.”
