Lagos — A member of the nation's relay quartet that won silver at the Sydney Olympics and bronze in the Athens Games, Enefiok Udo-Obang has from an insider's advantage profeered the factor that cost the nation a gold medal in the 4x400m relay in Greece to the absence of their Sydney coach, Innocent Egbunike in the Athens camp.

Speaking in an extensive interview with THISDAYSports yesterday, he said, "the quartet in Sydney comprising Sunday Bada, Clement Chukwu, Jude Monye were made up of well established world leaders in the quarter-mile. I was like the weakest link in terms of experience. The experience of Egbunike fetched us the medal."

Comparing the two teams, which he remains the only link, the Akwa-Ibom-born athlete said, "the Athens team, though younger and less experienced was a team of youth with a burning desire for meeting the challenges set within us. No body believed in us. I had to start psyching the other members of the team. God was our biggest supporter in meeting that effort."

He recalled that: "In Sydney, while coach Egbunike would prescribe exercises to be done and we complained, he would tell us he had done the same. This same pedigree the coach in the Athens camp could not lay claim to. Egbunike would tell us the rationale for his decisions, he was such a very simple person whose leadership characters spread some aura f confidence in the team, thus, our success. His tremendous experience had a push effect on us.

"Had we as a nation set out to win the gold medal in Athens, Egbunike would have been the only basis for the gold. Nigeria should have saddled him with the task since the end of the Sydney Games and had he gotten the support, training grants and other things, we would have matured much more than what you saw in Athens. We would have proudly bidded for the gold."

The graduate of human anatomy from the Univeristy of Calabar, whose immediate ambition is to pursue his masters degree as well as "work to win the gold medal in the individual events in Beijing 2008", added that, "with coach Egbunike identified now, saddled with the objective and given all he needs to succeed, we can win the gold in the 400m and its relay in China."

He continued, "I have fulfilled a personal ambition of being the first Nigerian male to have won gold (Sydney 2000) and bronze (Athens 2004) back to back in the relay, my next focus is to concentrate on the individual events in Beijing in 2008 where I hope to get the gold medal."

Reviewing the immediate past years, Udo-Obang said, "I had been plagued by a nagging injury. I was not too physically fit to my own satisfaction for Athens. It was a mind game and my experience that fetched me the Athens space. Even in the Nigerian camp we were not given a chance but we proved ourselves right.