TheCable

Olufunke Oshonaike, Nigeria’s table tennis star, says she is going to the Olympics in Tokyo to “defeat the undefeated” and set a new record.

In a chat with TheCable, the 11-time African Games medallist, who qualified for a record seventh appearance at the Olympics, said she wants to achieve beyond what she did at her previous Olympic appearances.

“I should defeat the undefeated. People that are thinking I won’t be able to defeat. I want to do that,” Oshonaike told TheCable.

“Apart from the fact that I am going to get the award in Tokyo, as the first woman in Nigeria and Africa or in the world, I just want this Olympic to be the best for me. I should do my best.

“I want to make another record in Tokyo. It is not sure for anybody. But as you all know, table tennis is more for the Chinese and other Asian countries.

“But I just want to do a better thing. I just want to build that name. To be better than I have been in my previous appearances at the Olympics. That is my dream for this one. And I just hope that my dream is going to come true.”

The 46-year-old would be the first African female athlete to qualify for seven Olympic Games as well as the first female table tennis player in the world to join the International Table Tennis Federation’s (ITTF) “club seven”.

“To God be the glory, I qualified for my seventh Olympics. I was the first Nigerian to have gone to the Olympics sixth time five years ago,” she added.

“I am the first Nigerian, African and woman in the table tennis world that will be going for her seventh Olympics. The first woman to join the other men at the seventh club.

“Infact, it is just a dream come true. I give thanks to God Almighty. I am so excited. A lot of things have happened in my life. But it is better now and to see that I am getting to my dream.”

Oshonaike said she’s thrilled to be joining compatriot Segun Toriola as well as Jean-Michel Saive of Belgium, Zoran Primorac of Croatia, and Jorgen Persson of Sweden on the podium of the summer games’ seventh club members.

She added that after the Rio 2016 games, she was ready to throw in the towel but a dint of hard work and sheer determination saw her punch the ticket to her 7th appearance at the Olympics.

“To me it’s just like a dream come true. Because I remember like five years ago at Rio 2016, when Segun [Toriola] collected his award for being in the seventh club. I looked at him, I looked at them and I saw all three men and just told myself then, that nothing is impossible,” she said.

“Because that time I actually wanted to stop playing international table tennis. I just changed my mind that I can just give it a try.

“And I remember our past president of table tennis, barrister Enitan Oshodi, telling me that you cannot give up on it(me) now. That I can still try and give it all my best to be the first woman to join the seventh club. And I tried once again but it was tough because I was going through a lot that time. But thankful to God that I made it.”

The rescheduled Tokyo 2020 Olympics will be held between July 23 and August 13, 2021.