Track and Field
After 14 years of absence on the medal table of the IAAF Championships, Blessing Okagbare won two medals for Nigeria in the last edition of the tourney, which took place in Russia in August 2013. She won a silver medal in long jump and abronze medal in the 200 meter race. The last time Nigeria won any medal was at the Seville’99 IAAF World Championship in Seville, Spain, where Gloria Alozie and Francis Obikwelu won a silver medal in the 100m hurdles and a bronze medal in the 200m respectively.
Nigeria’s Track and Long Jump Queen, Blessing Okagbare was honoured with the prestigious award of 2013 Athlete of the Year by the Nigeria Olympic Committee, (NOC), for her incredible performance in the year under review. Okagbare's sterling performance at the Moscow World Athletics championship where she won silver and bronze medals in the long jump and tracks and broke a 14-year jinx which had plagued the country no doubt, has put her in good stead for the award.
Blessing Okagbare did upset favorites Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Carmelita Jeter to win the 200 meters at the Diamond League meeting in Birmingham.
Our motherland (Nigeria) has become the number one sports nation in Africa. Never in the history of African athletics had one country been winner of the Senior, Junior and Youth Championships at the same time. Nigeria, indeed, has laid a record by winning the threesome in the last two years! First, we won the Senior Athletics Championship in Port Novo (June 27–July1,2012), followed by the inaugural Youth Championshipin Warri, Delta State (March 2013) and recently, we won the Junior Championship in Mauritius (August-September 2013).
. This same year, Nigerian juniors in Bambous, Mauritius topped the medals table of the African Junior Championships. Divine Oduduru and Nkiru Uwakwe added two gold medals on the final day of the event to cement Nigeria’s position at the top.
Team Nigeria completed the hat-trick of clinching the continent’s three major track and field titles, capping it with the Africa Junior Athletics Championships. Nigeria won the 11th Africa Junior championship which held in the Indian Ocean Island of Mauritius with nine gold, seven silver and three bronze medals to push arch rivals South Africa to the second place that collected seven gold, nine silver and eight bronze medals.
Indoor Sports
Our fine run in sports continued in Malaysia where the nation’s weightlifting team won the 2013 Commonwealth weightlifting championship. Nigeria won a total of eight gold, three silver and three bronze medals to lift the female championship trophy, while India lifted the male diadem.The closing ceremony was a glorious night for Nigeria as she carted away a total of four trophies. Agatha Obioma Okoli won a trophy as the best female lifter of the championship, while Joy Chika won two trophies after being voted as the best junior and youth lifter of the championship.
Nigeria's supremacy over Australia at both senior and junior levels in global table tennis will continue for a longtime due to the enormous talents in the pool of the West African nation. This was the verdict of the High Performance/ National Head Coach of Australia, Jens Lang based on Nigeria's performance after his lads lost 3-1 to Nigeria in the boys' team event of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) organised World Junior Championships which held in Rabat, Morocco.
Football
Coming out of 19 years of discomforting obscurity, Nigeria won the prestigious Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa in February. On that note, the year had kicked off gloriously for the national team, the Super Eagles, with the AFCON cap. Despite little or no faith placed on the team, they Nigerians by surprise and took Africa by storm; winning the competition. They made a name for themselves beating hitherto dreaded ‘power house’ of African football, the Elephants of Cote d'ivore and Burkina Faso (twice) to claim the trophy.
Similarly, our Under 17 side, the Golden Eaglets, recently won the FIFA U-17 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates thereby making 2013 end memorably with the Golden Eaglets becoming the first country to win the FIFA Under-17 World Cup for the fourth time, and the first team to score as many as 26 goals in the history of the tourney after unleashing a comprehensive 3-0 punishment on their Mexican counterparts at the El Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. With the discovery of young talents like Dele Alampasu, Taiwo Awoniyi, Kelechi Iheanacho and a host of others, the future of Nigerian sports is secure.
In the statement entitled "Triple Congratulations to a Blessed Nation", Globacom said "by winning the African Cup of Nations in February, the Under 17 World Cup just last week and now qualifying for the World Cup, Nigeria’s football is clearly on the ascendancy."
With the recent draw of the Super Eagles into Group F for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, it promises to be a sizzling and productive affair as we look forward to clashing with our usual almost ever present group member Argentina (whom Nigerians love to play against), Iran and surprise qualifiers Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In athletics, just like football and weightlifting, Nigeria in the out-going year, has proved beyond any reasonable doubt, that this most populous country in black Africa has regained her place of pride in African continental sports and the world beyond.
Having achieved this much in the year of goodluck, 2013, it is hoped that 2014 will bring more blessing and goodwill for Team Nigeria. Fellow Nigerians, what if our beloved Super Eagles- I mean the combination of a fully indigenised technical crew of magic Big Boss, Stephen Keshi and his never-say-die players bring the World Cup home in this coming year? Just imagine the Armageddon of jubilation that will take place on the street of this Obodo Niger! Wow! Compliments of the season.
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