Nigerian cyclist Ese Ukpeseraye said she had to borrow a bicycle from the German team to compete in the Keirin and Sprint events at the ongoing 2024 Paris Olympics after the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) and Cycling Federation of Nigeria (CFN) failed to provide her with one.
The sport Minister said on his X handle “Ese’s post seems to have been grossly misunderstood, perhaps also because it didn’t seem to give proper context to the matter in perspective. It is important i make some clarifications.”
“Abinitio, Team Nigeria qualified for one road race in cycling and prepared for it in terms of training and the appropriate competition equipment.
Team Nigeria was fully prepared for this road race until two weeks ago after the Cycling team with the rest of Team Nigeria had already left for the Olympics, when a communication from the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) was received reallocating additional slots to the Cyclist Federation of Nigeria (Kerin and individual sprint).”
“This reallocation to Nigeria was due to the disqualification of a country, leaving Nigeria as the next eligible to make the list of qualified countries to compete. Unfortunately, this additional slot required the use of a different competition equipment in terms of biking.”
“For this track race reallocated to Team Nigeria, very special equipment (approved specifically for the Olympic track game) is used. It’ll take months to have it delivered after ordering and making payment.”
To therefore get Ese to compete, the Federation through Ese’s Club in Europe and working with a German-owned Company, got a ‘Track Bike’ for our cycler Ese.
Tomorrow the 9th of August 2024, Ese will race in an individual sprint, the race she originally qualified for.
However, the Response didn’t go down well with people who took turns on X to reply to the Minister.
“You didn’t swing into action when you omitted Ofili Favor’s name from the 100m race.
Moreover for this, aren’t we suppose to have extra cycling materials in the first place ??
Swinging into action that could have been avoided since without stress by making adequate provision”.
“I find it inexcusable that they couldn’t get Ese a customized Keirin cycle bike 2 whole weeks after her participation was approved.
Fuji Bikes, Cinelli, Cervelo sell these bikes and trust me, nothing is too hard to get if you know where to look. These companies are prepared for times like these and they’re not building from scratch.
This also means Ese never had this bike to train with in the first place. So the official plan was really just to BORROW?
Decent efforts to at least borrow one which may not be a good fit for her, but this is not good enough. Let’s do better.”
“Read what you wrote again, sir.
How long would it take you to book a flight yourself from Abuja to Paris?
How long to order a bike? or get from International Cyclist federation or even from the Olympic organizers?
You people keep embarrassing the country. You should be Fired!”.
“As usual, untenable excuses.
But I don’t have strength for this matter, I would have asked what happened to Favour Ofili who missed her 100m race because whoever was supposed to fill in her name for the competition failed to do so. Does that also take months to import?”
