Julius OkorieNigeria’s hope of picking a medal of any colour in table tennis finally hit the rocks on Monday after debutant, Fatima Bello, was given baptism of fire by Jia Nan Yuan of France. Bello was comprehensively beaten 4-0 victory with set scores of 11-1, 11-3, 11-3, and 11-5.
Bello, expectedly struggled with the match the speed and precision of her opponent, ultimately leading to her elimination from the competition.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelHer exit on Monday completes the sacking of Nigerian players in that category of sports. Recall that top rated Nigerian player Aruna Quadri, Olajide Omotayo, and Effiong Edem, have all exited the 2024 Paris Olympics without winning a game.
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Edem exited the competition after suffering a 4-0 defeat to Brazil’s Bruna Takahashi in the women’s singles Round of 64, while Omotayo suffered a 4-1 loss to Iran’s Noshad Alamiyan. In his own case African champion who had been tipped in some quarters relying on his wealth of experience, suffered a dramatic 4-3 defeat to 19-year-old Romanian Eduard Ionescu.
This marks the first instance since the introduction of table tennis at the 1988 Olympics that no Nigerian player managed to secure at least one win in the competition.
Four days into the Olympics, South Korea leads the medal table with 5 gold, 3 Silver and one Bronze, while Japan, China and France complete the four countries with medals so far with each having five gold medals in the kitty.
Meanwhile, eleven time African Champions, Super Falcons will know by Wednesday whether or not they will progress to the knockout stage of the Women football event. The Falcons lost two matches against Brazil and Spain by a lone goal margin in both matches.
The next match will be against Japan who are currently second in Group C with 3 points same with Brazil while Nigeria is last on the table with no points.
The Randy Waldrum tutored side will be hoping to see Brazil beat Spain on Wednesday, while they earn at least a 2-0 win over Japan to have a chance of progressing.
Julius Okorie is Chief Sports and Entertainment Correspondent for Prime Business Africa. He began his journalism career with the Champion Newspaper and Sporting Champion and later moved on to Daily Independent and the Nation Newspapers. Okorie joined Prime Business Africa in 2024 bringing on board 20 years of experience in writing investigative news on Sports and Entertainment. His well researched and highly informative articles on Sports Business and general entertainment are followed by a wide range of audience.
