TEAM Nigeria’s last hope of a medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics evaporated today following the defeat of Hannah Reuben in wrestling.
Reuben, the last Nigerian athlete in action at the Games, lost her second round bout in women’s freestyle wrestling 76kg category 5-2 to Mongolia’s Davaanasan Amar Enkh.
The loss rounded off a dismal campaign for Team Nigeria, who were represented by 88 athletes in 12 disciplines at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
It is the worst outing for the country at the Olympics since London 2012, with all of Nigeria’s medal favourites falling by the wayside.
In wrestling, much hope was on Blessing Oborududu, who won the country’s first-ever medal in the sport with her silver at Tokyo 2020.
But this time, she fell just short, losing her semi-final and third-place bouts.
In athletics, Ese Brume also failed to repeat her Tokyo 2020 bronze medal feat in women’s long jump, finishing fifth in the final.
There were three Nigerians in the women’s long jump final, with Ruth Usoro and Prestina Ochonogor joining Brume, but none of them was close to the medal range.
The biggest disappointment was, however, Tobi Amusan, who the whole world expected to at earn one of the women’s 100m hurdles medals.
Instead, the world record holder and 2022 world champion failed to even reach the final.
After easing through the first round with a comfortable 12.49 seconds timing, Amusan regressed in the semi-finals and her 12.55s was not enough to get her to the final.
There was also some hope in D’Tigress after they defeated world No.3 Australia and world No.5 Canada in women’s basketball.
But everyone knew the journey was over when they were pitted against hot favourites United States of America in the quarter-finals.
The Americans have won gold in the last seven Olympics and in nine of the last 10, so it would have taken a miracle of monumental proportions for D’Tigress to beat them.
Indeed, despite their loss to USA, which was by a respectable 14 points, the brave ladies of D’Tigress were Nigeria’s biggest positives of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
