Ogunkoya bemoans unbroken record
Olukayode Thomas
March 27, 2010 11:32PM
The Atlanta 1996 Olympics Games has sweet and bitter memories for Falilat Ogunkoya.
Forever etched in her memory is the final of the women 400m where she not only won the bronze medal, but was in field where the best final in the history of women 400m was ran.
Six of the finalist did not only dip inside 50.00 sec, many of the final ran new personal best, set Olympics, area, continent and national records. Marie-Jose Perec, the winner, ran 48.25sec, it was not just a new personal best but a new Olympics record. Australian Cathy Freeman’s time (48.63sec) was a new personal best, Oceania and Australian record, Ogunkoya 49.10 sec was a new personal best, African and Nigeria.
There were other exceptional performances that athletics will never forget. These are Pauline Davis (49.28 sec), Jearl Miles (49.55 sec), Fatima Yusuf (49.77sec), Sandie Richards (50.45 sec), and Grit Breuer (50.71 sec).
Ogunkoya had what is arguably Nigeria best time on track when she anchored the Nigeria 4x400m team to win the silver medal. However, about 14 years after, the memory is no longer sweet for Ogunkoya. She is sad that today, her record is not being threatened, let alone being broken.
No Nigerian in the women 400m now run 52.00 sec or even 53.00sec and as the sports continue its spiral fall, there are fears that Ogunkoya’s record may remain unbroken for another decade or two. The record holder says a return to developmental programme will solve the problem.
“During my own days, we had junior competitions, but now there are no more competitions and the athletes that are now running believe that if they are running 51 seconds in Nigeria then they should train for 51 seconds. Another challenge is that most of our athletes are old, and we are not developing the younger ones. We need to develop a new set of athletes who will set a goal to run 49 seconds, who want to get to the World Championships and Olympics finals and win medals, athletes of nowadays are totally different from our own days.”
Not just the athletes
For Ogunkoya, the problem goes beyond the athletes. She also blamed the officials and the corporate bodies who are only interested in promotional events and not developments.
“Most of the sponsors are leaning towards ready made stars. Then most of our officials are not passionate about sports and that is the problem, when you are putting people that don’t know much about the sport, it is very difficult because they don’t have the same passion. The rate at which Nigeria’s sport is going down if we’re not careful, by 2012 or 2016 there will be nobody to represent the country.”
Developmental programme
Unlike most critics, Ogunkoya, now married to Seun Omotayo, a professor of Sports Psychology is not just making the call, she started a grassroots programme for developing emerging athletes in Oyo State.
"The Governor of Oyo State, Adebayo Alao Akala collaborated with the Falilat Ogunkoya Sports Foundation to organise the Secondary School Track and Field competition and I was very impressed with a guy that won the 100, 200 and 4x100 metres. The females did very well in the 400 metres and the long jump and I was impressed by the performance. Salaudeen Sheriff; he jumped 2.10 metres in the high jump. I know that the Oyo State Council is going to take very good care of some of these athletes and we’re going to see more of them in the near future. In the 400m, Kazeem Aminat ran 60.2 seconds and Akinyemi Esther ran 60.4 seconds.
“It was something we started from January 21st and worked more than six weeks in Oyo State. Nobody wants to go to the grassroots and that is why I was so happy with Adebayo Alao Akala for supporting the Falilat Ogunkoya Sports Foundation.”
Future plans
The programme with Oyo State government, according to Ogunkoya, is not going to be a one off thing as there are plans not only have regularly competition for the athletes, but expose them internationally,.
“What we are hoping to do is to send them to competitions next year that is taking place in the US, you have to be between 15 to 18 years to go for that competition. We are hoping that some of them will have scholarships to go to the United States to compete because some of them are in SS1, SS2 and SS3 so that is what we are hoping to do because we don’t want these athletes to just go away like that. The Foundation and state government will still monitor these athletes.”
Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games
The Commonwealth Games is about six months away and we don’t see anything on ground to show that Nigeria is preparing for the Games. Ogunkoya is not optimistic about Nigeria and the Commonwealth Games. “Our focus is just on competitions, Olympics, Commonwealth, All African Games, but how can we do well in these championships when we have neglected developmental programme, everybody is putting all their eggs in one basket and are looking forward to the World Cup, and that is the problem. When you lean on just one event, it is not good at all. I hope they start now because you cannot keep athletes in camp for one month and hope that they will perform. I hope that there’s going to be a wake up call for Nigeria to realise that the Commonwealth Games is at the corner. We have to remember that the Jamaicans who ran very well at the World Championships are at the Commonwealth. Nothing is moving, which is very sad.”
Drug scandal and sexual harassment
Ogunkoya is one of the few Nigerian athletes who competed at the top level and did not have any case of positive test for performance enhancing drugs. She speaks about the cases of positive drug test that is now prevalent,
"I think the problem is that anything you do, and there is a shortcut, there will always be trouble. Like some people when they catch them, the only thing you can hear is that “They lied”, but we need to shout more to our athletes that if they work very hard, they can win. If you get into problems because of drugs, you create a problem for yourself and your family.
I hope that the National Sports Commission will do more to educate these athletes that it is not good to take drugs. Maybe they feel that nobody is taking care of them, that is why they are going through the back door."
Recently, a national athlete based in the United States, Vivian Chwukemeka complained about sexual harassment. She alleged that the reason why she tested positive was because some officials wanted to sleep with her but she refused. Ogunkoya said she was not harassed by anybody when running as an athletes. “I was not harassed because as I was very lucky as an athlete. All I needed to do then was just to go and compete and if you don’t pay me my money because of one reason or the other, I will leave the money with you because I had my contract with Nike and the contract said all I needed to do was to be one of the top athletes in the world in my event, so if I go to Grand Prix and the European circuit and I among the best, when I win, I will collect money and they will pay my fares and things like that, so that’s why I concentrate on my race. Sometimes when you want to collect your money and somebody doesn’t want to pay your money, they might want to harass you, in my time as an athlete I will just leave the money with them. I didn’t have that kind of experience.”
Ogunkoya urged other governors to emulate Adebayo Alao Akala. “My advice to them is to support the Falilat Ogunkoya Sports Foundation because our aim is the grassroots and to help to develop athletics Nigeria for better performances in the near future. I want people to win more medals for Nigeria in 2016, 2020 so that by that time, we will be winning medals like the Jamaicans. During my own days we do the junior, we do the senior so that by the time we go for competitions, we don’t have problems.”