Why Nigerian cyclist ‘borrowed’ bicycle to compete at Olympics – Sports minister
Why Nigerian cyclist ‘borrowed’ bicycle to compete at Olympics – Sports minister
Sports minister, John Enoh has explained why Nigerian cyclist, Ese Ukpeseraye had to ‘borrow’ a bicycle from the German team to compete at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Ukpeseraye, the only African cyclist among 30 competitors, sparked a social media frenzy after thanking the German team for lending her a bicycle due to a lack of the required equipment.
Enoh, however, in a statement on X explained that Team Nigeria had not initially planned to participate in the specific race in question, and therefore, no prior preparations were made.
Olympics: Nigerian cyclist borrows bicycle from German team for track event
He stated that ‘special equipment’ is needed for the track game, and it takes months to be delivered after it is ordered.
He wrote, “My attention has been called to a post on social media by Ese Ukpeseraye. After reading the post and some follow-up comments, I swung into action. Ese’s post seems to have been grossly misunderstood perhaps also because it didn’t seem to give proper context to the matter in perspective. It is important I make some clarifications.
“Abinitio, Team Nigeria qualified for one road race in cycling and prepared for it in terms of training and the appropriate competition equipment. Team Nigeria was fully prepared for this road race until two weeks ago, after the Cycling team with the rest of Team Nigeria had already left for the Olympics, when a communication from the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) was received reallocating additional slots to the Cyclist Federation of Nigeria (Kerin and individual sprint).
“This reallocation to Nigeria was due to the disqualification of a country, leaving Nigeria as the next eligible to make the list of qualified countries to compete. Unfortunately, this additional slot required the use of different competition equipment in terms of biking,” he stated.
He said to get Ese to compete, the federation through Ese’s Club in Europe, and working with a German-owned company, got a ‘Track Bike’ for the cyclist.
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