Emma Okocha
26 August 2008
analysis
"After Beijing, there is only one Michael, Michael Jordan is a basketball legend, but Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympic athlete of all times" - Jim Lampley NBC Sports.
"The Chinese opening ceremonies can never be duplicated....Canada has no such budget as to match this overwhelming spectacle" - George Parkinson, Member, Canadian Olympic Hosting Committee.
Nigerian football players get their Silver medal won at the Olympic football tournament at the the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. AFP PHOTO.
THE greatest success story coming out of the games so far, is the 2.5 million people from Jamaica. On the other hand, the Chinese put up a work man show for the opening ceremonies. The press in search of heroes and commercial advantages hailed the Chinese restoration of the Sun dynasty, describing the tedious overtime bore as glamorous, exulting spectacle. We disagree.
The whole complicated clash of the old and new China on canvass across the digital camera was more than morbid entertainment. Anytime you introduce science, without warning on stage with the surface arts, you are courting rebellion from the audience, that is used to remorseless entertainment. And the Chinese unsmiling workers, with their very staid, unsexy overalls did not help matters.
After some few minutes of the "Yellow Danger Hollywood Act" the rough actors succeeded in sending the children to sleep. There was very little aesthetics. Those workers should come down to Brazil or to the Atilogwu village and learn how to beat the drum.
Losers are those cultural buffs . Each time these Olympic parades are on, they decide to appear like peacocks or butterflies of the rain forests. Papa New Guinea, Burundi,Swaziland, Lesotho. We don't have to look like the forest inmates to celebrate our traditional attire. Look at Tanzania, combining the European cover jacket with the Muslim sultan gowns. What is that?
We return to the sublime aspirations of the people of Jamaica. I have visited the island as a tourist and as a satellite tennis competitor and ATP director . One of those paradises on the planet, where the memories of the first touchdown is so entrapping that it forces your return.
The welcoming united nations population of Kingston, where the black the white, the brown are all classified as the Caribbeans. Oh Yes , these people at the capital are united by the shared heritage of history, language, geography and socialization.
Negril on the Pacific coastlines challenges the renowned beauty of Paris, the romantic intrigue of Monaco, the coquettish character of West Virginia, and the midnight sexual overthrow of Casablanca. Don't leave your hotel bed late in the night, when the city comes under the supreme veil command of its hordes of belly rapping Arabian virgins. So who will not forgive me if we did not take Jamaica serious before Beijing. After the Athens Olympics, Jamaica went home with very few drab medals.
On their way home, the managers of the sports decided that next time they meet the world, the records will tumble and the world would take notice. After all, this is the land that have sustained a sublime pedigree in the sprints. Raymond Stewart, controversial Ben Johnson who ran in the purple colours of Canada. Donovan Powell, Merlene Ottey, Grace Jackson, all coming after probably the best of them all veteran Mcinley who ran the sprints in the early 50's.
Jamaica came home after that Olympics and decided to stay home and employ the native advantages of their national sports to beat the world. A program was approved to keep the athletes at home . At home the weather is nice and the athletes can train all round the year round. The young and upcoming sprinters were admitted into the track program of the top University of Technology in Kingston.
There, the track and sports program are tied to the academic program of these students. Not far away are their parents , families and coaches who understand their culture, their ambitions. Unlike their foreign coaches the home coaches are natives and affordable.
The program to produce the best sprinters in the world also avoided the foreign circuits and focused on the spartan training schedule which eventually attracted the Jamaican student athletes and other professionals who returned from Europe and the United States.
Suddenly the flight to America with all the stress of combining college academics and top college athletic competition started to fizzle. The Asafa Powells and Fraziers usually discovered from High Schools are discretely programmed and supervised at the tough high fields, scattered in Kingston and other cities.
The goal of destroying all opposition is hatched here at home, when the final product is unleashed on the tartan tracks of the universe. Look at the sneer on the face of "Lightening"Bolt and and clinical finish of Frasier.
You may go further to ask the question, whatever happened to Cuba, the US, the Balkans and the Germans in the sprints? With the way the Jamaicans have dominated, it is predictable that the island nation will not only continue to outdistance all competitors, Jamaica is already replacing Europe and the US as the training ground of the world future super stars.
Parading the women fastest gold and the men relays, and the 21 year old, Lightening Bolt, eating up every mammal on the fast track, Jamaica has as the greatest outcome of the last Olympics, imprinted for years, the restafallen flag as a super athletic emblem never to be ignored down the the sports balconies of the world.
Michael Phelps and the Greatest Olympians
The media announced him as the greatest of all times. The criteria for that award turned out to be very simplistic. At the Beijing Olympics, Michael Phelps was able to erase the decades old record of Mark Spitz, who won over seven swimming gold medals in Munich, Germany.
In relaying the Michael Phelps story, the media were bent on electing the greatest Olympian of all time from day one. Hence, the Michael Phelps story made the headlines the day he won the first gold. He was the news the day he won the seventh gold to equal Mark Spitz record.
The moment he passed the mark, Michael was anointed, and from then, would be treated and given the status of a Hollywood superstar.
We shall give the champion of the waters his due. He excelled, despite his early life disadvantages of growing up without his father. He was able at the Athens Olympics to conquer the world.
In Beijing , Michael against, very brutal competitions among the best in the world, managed to lick every rival and coasted home with over eight medals. From which ever angle you look at his achievements; whether he was competing on water, in the field, inside a ring, or jumping the bars, Michael Phelps is a rare phenomenon.
Having said that, I would say that it is hasty to declare him the greatest Olympian of all times. That title never went to Jesse Owens.
The fastest man of his generation to win four gold medals before the intimidating glare of Hitler and the German war mobilized population. The title was not good enough for the Scottish born Eric Liddel who in 1924 would not run the 100yard Olympics on Sunday.
The Sabbath day is for the Lord, he protested. In the same Olympics, he was going to commit suicide by moving up to do the 400 yards . He ran the first 200 yards with all his might and was in the lead.
When everybody including the stadium thought he was finished, Eric went back on his chin, turning his body and limbs into a windmill in operation. On the final lap, he accelerated and disappeared from his grunting adversaries. Olympics for the records, had never seen, or will never see any race like that.
For his infectious Christianity, the film, Chariots of Fire was in 1981 dedicated to his memories. There is always the epic of Cassius Marcellus Clay in the Rome 1960 Olympics. That story can be told by any teenager from any part of the dividing lines or regions of the globe.
Nobody can ignore the Ali classic introduced and made flesh by the young man's winning of the heavyweight Olympic gold . So how can anybody award the greatest medal to any human without the mention of the greatest of all time....Mohammad Ali!
There are others whose records have not been broken and therefore there cannot be any greatest Olympian without their mention. Then the crucial argument. Swimming was never part of the original sports when the Greeks introduced the Olympics to mankind.
As we draw the curtains on the Beijing Olympics, it is a difficult proposal to anoint Michael Phelps as the greatest when the games before our own eyes produced the fastest human being of all times! Usain Lightening Bolt!
The Nnamanis, Obikwelus,Onyias, and the Ohurugos
Ogonna Nnamani is the US silver medalist, volleyball spiker. She plans to study medicine after the Olympics in one of the Universities in the state of California. She was very reliable. Her singular exploding kills and digs sent the tough Polish squad packing.
Obikwelu, Portugal, Onyia Spain, and Ohurugo, England, had their various stages and the fast feet of Ohurugo got her a gleaming gold in the 400 metres for England. Obikwelu who was in the Nigerian team before changing his nationality did not touch the 'Lightening' Bolt, but was a silver medalist at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
If these Olympians could do so well for the adopted countries and are very happy with their choice, then something is wrong with the Nigerian sports management. A ministry of sports unable to attract other nationalities to play or to run for Nigeria cannot wish for medals or sports glory when our own sportsmen and women are abandoning boat in droves.
The Losers: The Nigerian Supporters contingent
The Nigerian Supporters Contingent will as usual lose half of their supporters after the games. Some will decide to get married on the spot; few will prefer to forget their flight schedule and make for the public shelters. Others, will in the next few weeks stay underground.
It is payback time. With a grin, citizen Alibaba Oluwole Okoronkwo would mutter to himself 'to hell with the stupid Nigerian government....they have nothing for me in that polity....I'm escaping from your misgovernment'.
But the greatest losers are the government officials who incidentally have their spots , their green apparels reserved for them by the executive of the supporters club. They also have their drums, and their extended 'pregnant' stomachs are tattooed. We can see in that heterogeneous 'all comers' supporters crowd, a former commissioner of sports from a prominent state of the Niger Delta.
He is not only hilariously shouting himself hoarse, he is carrying on his head in the second row, beside the other urchins, a pot of African concoction of dead smelling duck, mixed with honey and other unprintables.
This is the 'Honourable' we had recruited from the streets to join our sports programe. He ended up cleaning out the the whole stores and awarding his own companies all the state sports contracts. Like the other government and PDP official delegation, Nigeria losing the soccer gold, has put the lie and jamboree to question.
What is going to be their next spin? If the boys had won the gold, the pandemonuim and the national celebrations would have eclipsed the criminal squandermania and the obvious distraction their presence posed to the committed athletes in Beijing
Finally, we sincerly weep for Siasia the Nigerian soccer coach. He is making a mistake of offering us a robotic squad. ...well conditioned team , disciplined, but lacking in individual imagination and creativity.
A Nigerian team of robots,cannot beat the best of Brazil ,Argentina or Italy when there is noThompson Usiyan, Emma Okala, Segun Odegbami, Bulldozer Amokachie, Jay Jay Okocha or Kanu Nwankwo in the line up. In the last Olympics, the Nigerian coach had nobody to hold the Argentinan world rated attacking star Messi.
We saw him showing the least respect for our porous midfield. Each time he had the ball ,the whole Nigerian team was in panic. As we argued last week, we lost the only gold we were praying for, when we allowed Siasia who in his days was not a very disciplined footballer, to worry about table manners, instead of bringing our best to the Olympics.
The job of the coach is strictly to devise the plans and the strategies to win matches. He is also to select from the ready materials available to decide whether his men in the field would play according to his set options.
Sometimes, depending on the strength of the opposing team, it is also an acceptable option by great Nigerian coaches such as Otto Gloria , Father Tiko and Dan Anyiam to allow the players some creative room to express themselves and disorganize the opposing side. Such immortals like Thompson Usiyan , Muda Lawal and Jay Jay cannot be held down by dictated coach's plan .
In their prime, no team in the world can stop these cadre of players for they play mostly out of intuition. It is not for the coach to double as a coach and at the same time a headmaster. We lost the match when our greatest player to the Olympics was not allowed into camp, even when he was ready to come and play.
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