TheCable

Chimezie Metu, D’Tigers power forward, has blamed the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) and sports ministry for the country’s woeful performance at the ongoing Tokyo Olympics.

On Monday, TheCable had reported how D’Tigress, the Nigerian women’s basketball team, suffered a third consecutive defeat in the hands of Japan to bow out of the games.

This was less than 48 hours after the country’s men’s basketball team was also eliminated from the games after losing all three games.

In a series of comments credited to Metu and shared on the team’s verified Twitter page, the Nigerian-American professional basketball player claimed that the country’s contingents have not been treated well in Tokyo.

In the post, the 24-year-old also alleged that they were distracted by several “off-the-court” matters that affected the team’s productivity.

Metu bemoaned the “lack of empathy for the hard work” that the NOC and sports ministry allegedly displayed in Tokyo.

The Sacramento Kings star added that during the lead up to D’Tigers’ first game against Australia, the team trained without a coach — in a game Nigeria lost 84-65 to the Boomers.

“I’d like to use this time to bring awareness and comment on the off-the-court things a lot of Nigerian athletes have had to go through in these Olympics. It’s extremely difficult to go out there and try to focus on the basketball game,” Metu was quoted as saying.

“We see other countries and how they’re living, and it’s just so smooth for them. Man, what I wouldn’t give to have that. Like I said, all of us would die for our country. We would put it on the line, every last one of us. They make it extremely difficult to want to go out there and want to represent honestly.

“It was a lack of attention to detail and lack of empathy for the hard work that’s put in by us athletes by the Nigerian Olympic committee as well as the government. For 6o-something athletes to fly halfway across the world and get disrespected and humiliated by our country, that’s something that I’m pretty sure none of us will stand for.

“I commend coach Mike Brown; he’s put a lot on the line for us. We had to practice with no coach before we played the best team in the world, Australia. I just feel I have to bring attention to that and try to use this platform to speak out against this.”

The basketball player is not the first athlete to complain about the treatment of Team Nigeria by the country’s sports authorities.

BlessingOkagbare had earlier slammed the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) after 10 of her colleagues were disqualified for not meeting the Olympics doping tests requirement.