Nigeria at Budapest 2023 World Athletics Championship
By Professor Emmanuel Ojeme
The 19th edition of the World Athletics Championship took place at Budapest, Hungary from 19th to 27nd August, 2023 and Nigeria actively participated in the event. The Athletics Federation of Nigeria presented athletes on behalf Nigeria at the event. This event has been a regular athletics competition since 1983 when the inaugural edition was staged in Helsinki, Finland. In the overall medals all time table of the world athletics participating countries, Nigeria is rated by Wikipedia as the 59th nation globally.
In this year’s championship, however, hope was high that Nigeria would shine particularly with the high ranking performances of Tobi Amusan and Ese Brume in the female 100m hurdles and long jump respectively. In the male sprint events, the athletes hardly entered the medal winning zone. Ese Brume could not reach the finals in her event while Tobi Amusan came 6th in the finals of the female 100m hurdles. The next edition of the World Athletics Championship is scheduled for Tokyo, Japan in September of 2025. What must Nigeria do to improve on her participation and performance in future competitions?
Nigeria as the giant of Africa, no doubt is expected to live upto its status in the sports field. The nation must not only participate but also put up befitting performances. This is the burden of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria. Does Nigeria have the talents? Yes of course. Nigeria has the youth population with athletic talents. The youths are in the communities and school systems. Athletic talents morphologically identified, programmed and incubated through systematic scientifically structured activities as well as competitions in a horizontal and vertical manner by professionally trained personnel, could savage our image in world competitions.
Athletes are nurtured and psychologically guided to attain optimum performance. A critical tool required for success is personal discipline to:
1. Follow prescribed nutrition habits
2. Adhere to training schedule
3. Avoid steroid and doping
4. Adhere to skill and fitness improvement practices
5. Avoid being overconfident
6. Take instructions from coaches and trainers
7. Recognise that performance is not what happened previously but situational manifestation of competence. It is what you elicit in the present situation that determines your rating.
Hence, the athletes must be in the fullness of the present and not the past.
Tobi Amusan, Ese Brume and others must concentrate actively on the present and future of their career to remain relevant.
Furthermore, the AFN, the Sports Ministry and stakeholders must have a round table on the way forward for athletics in Nigeria. Nigeria has the potential to do better than its present performance outing. As part of the reform process and programmes, it is an imperative to train and retrain coaches and other hands on personnel to ensure that knowledge and competences required for the job are updated.
Budapest 2023 should be a watershed for development of athletics in Nigeria. It is now time to review our programmes and practices to ensure more productive outings in the years ahead. All hands must be on deck.
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PROFESSOR EMMANUEL OJEME, EMAIL:successojeme@yahoo.com
