Nigerian Paralympics athlete sad to lose Gold to China

Isn’t it strange that an athlete would break a world record and still not win the gold medal at stake?

That was the scenario at the Paralympic Games yesterday in London as Nigeria’s Folashade Olwafemiyo lost the gold medal in the -75kg women powerlifting event to China’s Fu Taoying.

They both had a lift of 146kg and also had a fourth attempt, which was outside the competition, with the Nigerian girl setting a world record of 148kg but the Chinese was handed the gold for having a lesser body weight.

It was indeed under questionable circumstances laced with sports politics and technical ineptitude of Nigerian officials.

The Nigerian officials protested Fu’s last lift at 146 but the protest was thrown out to the chagrin of the Nigerian officials, who should have also submitted a lift of147kg as soon as the Chinese officials increased to 146kg, to brighten Oluwafemiyo’s chances of winning the gold.

A handful of Nigerian fans left the excel centre sad, knowing that their compatriot was robbed of a sure gold medal. And close to tears, Oluwafemiyo told Nigerian journalists that she was sad that such thing was happening to her in a sport she loves so much.

“This is what they did to us yesterday when they conspired against Lucy Ejike. They have done it to me and I am very sad,” she said. “I am the best and everyone saw what I did. I guess the officials had a mindset of who they wanted to win.”

Coach Are Ogunfeyisetan was so angry and didn’t hide his disgust for the apathy shown towards his athletes that he said: “I am not happy at all because it seems the international federation already knows how many gold medals they wanted us to win at the Games, but we have shown here that we are the best.”