First day at the Olympics, Nigeria participated only in Tennis with veteran Segun Toriola going head to head with Sweden’s Jorgen Persson, who has played tennis at the Olympics since Seoul 1988 and Quadri Haruna squaring off against Spain’s Carlos Machado.
Toriola who’s been All Africa’s singles champion for 16 consecutive years dating back since 1995, was out of his wits and was discharged with ease by Persson who cruised to a 4-1 victory.
Quadri produced a better display than Toriola defying all odds to send his opponent out of the competition. Olufunke Oshonaike dispatched her Iranian rival, Neda Shahsavari in a decider. Neda had come back from behind against Olufunke only to lose the decider 11-3.
The Second day at the Olympics, Nigeria’s Male Basketball team made their debut against fellow Africans, Tunisia at the Games. They continued from where they left off in their previous outing. However, they almost gave away a 19 point lead but held on to win the match 60-56. Al-Farouq Aminu led Nigeria to victory in their first ever match at the Games with 15 points and 9rebounds. Nigeria dominated the match right from the word go but lost their rhythm hence allowing the Tunisians to fight back but held on for the important win.
Jonathan Akinyemi, the 23year old canoeist made history yesterday as the first person to represent the West African country in the K1 Slalom Canoeing category. Cheered on by some Nigerian fans, he finished 21st out of 22 competitors, crashing out in the process. Nevertheless, he maintained it was an honour to compete at the Olympics for his country.
Nigerian tennis star, Quadri Aruna failed to build on yesterday victory over his spanish opponent and was sent packing by Bora Vang of Turkey. Quadri raced into a 2nil lead before losing the next four games While Olufunke lost to Italian player, Wenling. With these losses, it means Nigeria has no representative left in the Table Tennis Category.
