Rio 2016 fallout: Pulling Nigeria back from the brink,Read for full details

Nigeria’s poor outing at the Rio Olympic Games has triggered a debate over what should be done to improve the country’s fortune in sporting events. ADEYINKA ADEDIPE takes a look at Team Nigeria’s performance in Brazil and writes that the slide will continue unless the government, corporate organisations and other stakeholders rise ways to rescue the situation.
The story of Nigeria’s failure at the 31st edition of the Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil is a familiar one. Only the die-hard optimists and unrepentant patriots would have expected a different outcome considering the shoddy build-up to the Games. Those who expected a spectacular performance from Team Nigeria in Rio got it all wrong. They allowed patriotism, rather than reality, to override their sense of judgment.
For the umpteenth time, the woeful performance of Nigeria at a major championship has sparked debate over what should be done to get sports on the right track. It took the heroic effort of the Dream Team to win a bronze – the country’s only consolation medal at the games where 74 athletes took part. Apart from the Dream Team’s feat, table tennis star Aruna Quadri became the first African to play in the quarter finals of the Games, losing to the eventual winner, China’s Ma Long.
In a competition where Nigeria struggled to make a mark, countries like Fiji Island, Kosovo, Jordan, Singapore and Tajikistan won their first gold medals. Expectedly, their compatriots back home celebrated the feat of their ‘worthy’ ambassadors.
It is disheartening, as well as baffling that Nigeria has not been able to build on the record it set at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 where it won two gold medals – one from the Dream Team, led by iconic player Kanu Nwankwo and the other by Chioma Ajunwa, whose epic performance in the long jump event reverberated all over the world.
The once-in-a-life-time jump endeared Ajunwa to athletics buffs and fans alike.
Since recording its best performance in Atlanta 20 years ago, it has been a free fall for Nigeria at the Olympic Games, culminating in the country’s inability to win any medal at the London 2012 Olympic Games amid great expectation.
The administrators, who presided over the London debacle, promised that efforts would be done to ensure that the country bounced from that poor outing to post a good outing in Rio. That ambitious dream may be for the future as the curtain has dropped on the Rio Olympics with Nigerian, once again, failing to shine on the world stage in Brazil.
The proverbial drawing board seems not to be working for the country as its contingents to the Olympics have continued to struggle at every edition of the games. So, what could be done to arrest the situation?  To some, the problems being faced by the country in sports is peculiar to it. They believe a close look into the British model of sports development may be helpful.

The British model
For Britain, the Rio Olympic was a fiesta like never before. The country has its best medals haul in 108 years, coming second on the medal table behind the United States of America (USA). The United Kingdom (UK) has set a record as the only host nation to win more medals at the next Olympics.
Twenty years ago, Britain finished 36th on the Atlanta Olympics medal’s table. Its entire contingents had a gold medal to show for their participation. Today, the story has changed. It is a story of remarkable transformation. As that nadir was being reached back in 1996, the most pivotal change of all had already taken place.
The advent of the National Lottery in 1994, and the decision of John Major’s struggling government to allocate significant streams of its revenue to elite Olympic sport, set in motion an unprecedented funding spree in British sport. From a paltry £5 million per year before Atlanta, UK sport’s spending shot to £54 million by Sydney 2000, where Britain won 28 medals to clinch the 10th position on the medal table. By 2012, when it hosted the Games in London, Britain came third w