Systematic review of team Nigeria’s performance in olympic games: Causes, concerns, and remediation strategies

Abstract

Participation and winning medals in Olympic Games have become a  veritable avenue through which nations attain international visibility. It is also an opportunity for countries to make strong political statement about their advancements in sports. Nigeria performance in recent Olympics has been unimpressive. This work examined the performance of team Nigeria since its first participation in Olympics and the major causes of persistent poor performance which among other includes, politics and power use in  sports, corruption, defective preparation mechanism for international sport competition, lack of state-of-the-art training facilities, Disconnect between existing sport research Institutions and ministry of sports, funding and its misappropriation in sport.. Concerns were raised with respect to the  implication of the continued trend of poor performance. It was therefore  recommended that comprehensive review and re-design of framework for National sport development that is sport specific and clarification of diverse national sports goals be embarked upon, while efforts directed at actively  engaging the services of indigenous sports scientists in this drive for sports excellence.