Nigeria has won three gold medals at the Olympic Games with two of those coming at the Atlanta 1996 Games where the U-23 football team and Chioma Ajunwa, won gold medals.
The third and the final came four years later in Sydney Games where the 4×400 men won a silver medal that was later upgraded to gold after the team that won the gold, USA, was stripped off the medal.

However, Ajunwa remained the only athlete with individual gold medal for Nigeria when she jumped a length of 7.12m to win the Long Jump event.

In a recent interview on a TV programme, Ajunwa said there was need for athletes to double their efforts to win gold at the Olympics.

The Games in Paris which officially started on Friday, July 26, will see Team Nigeria competing in 11 events with the aim of winning medals.

Reflecting on how she won gold in 1996, the former footballer turned athlete said winning gold at the Games was not an easy task.

“Well it’s a great feeling, a wonderful thing too, to win an Olympic gold is not an easy task,” she said.

“To win an individual gold, such an athlete must be thorough in training, must be thorough in everything even the way you eat, your movement should be well-monitored, training well-monitored and you have to have a programme that is world-class, not just piece and pieces training, it must not be anyhow training, you have to work from head to toe and make sure all part of the body already gotten what it supposed to do.

“Motivation must be there also and the athletes must be well-disciplined because you can’t eat your cake and have it at the same time. There is no time for nonsense because you know that the Olympics is the ultimate for everyone and all the athletes coming are coming to win, the mindset of winning the gold and if you want to do that, then you also must be thorough. The focus, attention, determination, everything, must be there.”

While giving insight on what she did to win the gold, Ajunwa said she had to look at where she was coming from and see that there was no room for failure.

According to her, the investment she put into her training before the Olympics, if she had failed, she might not get that opportunity again, hence her total commitment to all the details.

She added: “Back in 1996, actually I didn’t train in Nigeria, I was in the UK, my manager then, Chief Segun Odegbami, tried his best that whenever the UK athletes were going for training outside UK, I’d go with them and I think that was the advantage I had.

“At the time, they left UK, we went to Malaga in Spain, Florida in the US, we went to Czech Republic and all these trainings were world-class and I was an athletes that didn’t not take things for granted, when we finished training, and I got back home, I would replicate all we did, so I was getting double portion.

“Other athletes when we were training, let’s say for example others did 50 press-up, I will do 150 back home because I know when we get to training the following day, the coach might ask us to go for 70, others would be struggling and I would be doing 100 because I had done double portion before.

“All that I was doing was looking back at where I was coming from, that I had no one and for me to fail, it’s a big deal. Because some people who have fathers that have money, when they go for competition, if they fail, they will say don’t worry, you can do better next time because the money is there. But if I fail, who will prepare me for the next time?

“So, I put all my best into what I was doing and I also called on my God, and I told Him my background, everything and He answered me. I want to tell all the athletes that are in Paris to table all their problems before Him and He will solve them for you.”

Meanwhile, Ajunwa has called on the Athletic Federation of Nigeria to give all their support to the track and field athletes for them to win medals at the Games.

“Let me add that before you can do well at the Games, the World Athletics must have seen that you have been doing well back at home, therefore, the athletics body in one’s country has a lot to do in other to prepare the athletes very well, so that they will be able to compete very well with their opponents.

“When they are coming, they are not going there to watch the people that are competing, they are there to compete themselves, so, one problem we have here in Nigeria is that, sometimes, we don’t prepare well. Sometimes, we go to Olympics, instead of competing we are training, because we didn’t train when others were training, I just hope this year is not going to be the same.”