Winter Olympics

My faith in humanity, sorry black race was rekindled last week at the Opening of the winter Olympics in South Korea. The bobsled team — composed of made in America -Nigerian athletes Seun Adigun, Akuoma Omeoga and Ngozi Onwumere — and Nigeria’s history-making skeleton athlete Simidele Adeagbo are the first to compete for the country and indeed Africa at the Winter Olympics.

I watched the opening ceremonies with some of my American friends and it was thing of a pride to jump up when Nigeria made her entry garbed in the reminiscent green and white. And since they are black and will be riding on white (snow)at the games, I psychologically felt an advantage. But it wasn't long before my American friends noticed that the Nigerian team do not speak like me! In other words, I have accent; they don't. Cheeky Americans.

They couldn't have been heavily accented like me. Simi Adeagbo was born in Canada but spent all her formative years in Nigeria with her parents before she moved to USA at the age of six. There, she became four time NCAA All American and triple jump record holder for the University of Kentucky. Equally, the rest of the four delegates share similar background with Simi, in the sense that they were all born in the USA. If you graciously leave out the place of nativity, these atheletes are all imbued with the Nigerian spirit, though they do not have our tongue.

Simi didn't get to touch a sled until November last year, and the rest athletes have to make do with wooden bobs for training. Winter sport, especially the skeleton and sleds are very expensive sporting equipments. The team had to do a crowd funding for $74,000 online within 14 months as they put their individual life on suspension to pursue their and our Olympic dream. So, their arrival at the game alone was an arduous task. As audacious as winning may sound in their first attempt at competing at the highest level in sub zero environment, I always bet on black! And so should you.

If you ever think for a minute that this is not a  big deal, consider the percentage of blacks that are  involved in winter Olympics,(Out of nearly 3,000 athletes, black athletes make up just 1.45 percent of those vying for medals)  add that to the number of times you have planned and finished a private project,and you will know that it is easier for a python to swallow money, than for black to break barriers in any human endeavour. Especially, when operating from home.

This is a story that may not inspire our youths nor motivate our leaders whose political careers will be hurling down at the same speed with Simi’s sled for both groups are materialistic for different reasons. And if you are indifferent to a story of some black ladies making history in ice cold Pyeongchang, remember that Bill Gates may not be able to identify mosquito if he sees one, yet he continue to spend sizeable amount of his wealth in eradicating malaria in Africa. It is about humanity.