Team Nigeria concluded its Paris 2024 Olympic campaign without winning a single medal, marking the eighth time in the nation’s Olympic history that its athletes will return home empty-handed.
A total of 88 Nigerian athletes competed across 12 sports at the Paris Olympic Games.
Hannah Reuben, the nation’s last hope, fell short in her second-round women’s freestyle wrestling match, losing 5-2 to Mongolia’s Davaanasan Amar Enkh, sealing Nigeria’s worst Olympic performance since London 2012.
Nigeria’s Olympic journey has been fraught with challenges, beginning with its debut in Helsinki in 1952.
The medal drought persisted through Melbourne in 1956, Rome in 1960, with a brief respite at Tokyo 1964 when Nojeem Mayegun won the country’s first Olympic medal.
The struggles continued in Mexico City 1968, Moscow 1980, Seoul 1988, and now Paris 2024.
However, there are promising signs for the future as the countdown to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games begins.
Nigeria showed improvement in athletics, with six finalists, up from four in Tokyo 2020 and two in Rio 2016.
Favour Ofili, notably excluded from the 100m event, made history as the first Nigerian woman to reach the 200m final since Mary Onyali’s feat at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics.
Additionally, Chukwuebuka Enekwechi’s sixth-place finish in the Shot Put final stands out as a notable achievement.
These performances offer a glimmer of hope as Nigeria looks to build on them and break its medal drought at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.
