Nidhish Waghmare
With Paris 2024 now not very far, The Men’s Olympic Football Tournament Paris 2024 will start from July 24. Since 1996 around all 96 years after the inaugural instalment – that an African nation struck gold at the Men’s Olympic Football Tournament for the first time.
A victorious moment for Africa as Up until that point, teams flying the flag for UEFA, Concacaf and CONMEBOL had ruled supreme on the Olympic stage, while all six regional confederations had been allocated qualifying slots since Melbourne 1956.
Nigeria at Olympics
Nigeria is all set to compete at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris from 26 July to 11 August 2024 as the nation made its debut in Helsinki 1955.
Nigerian athletes have appeared in every edition of the Summer Olympic Games , except for Montreal 1976 as part of the Congolese-led boycott.
Nigerians have won 26 Olympics medals, including three gold. They won their first gold medals in 1996, when long jumper Chioma Ajunwa and the Super Eagle became Olympic Champions.
Three Nigerians runners who have won two medals at the Olympics: Enefiok Udo-Obong, Faliat Ogunkoya and Mary Onyali-Omagbemi.
FiFA
The Super Eagles featuring Jay-Jay Okancha, Victor Ikpeba, Taribo West, Sunday Oliseh, Celestine Babayora and captain Nwankwo Kanu got their campaign up and running with a 1-0 win over Hungary, which was followed by a 2-0 success against Japan, before they were undone by a Ronaldo strike in a 1-0 loss at the hands of Brazil.
Although they lost in the final group stage outing, the western Africans still got through the quarter-finals on goal difference, finishing as runners-up to the Brazilians and Japanese
Ikepeda in recent interview “I’d say that we only started to think about the gold medal after our semi‑final victory over Brazil,”
“We were 3‑1 down in that match but managed to draw level at 3‑3 before going on to win 4‑3 in extra time. God was on our side!” He added
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