Tokyo 2025: Nigerian Athlete Blame Team Officials For Poor Performance
Team Nigeria’s quarter miler, Samuel Ogazi, has blamed the technical staff for allegedly forcing him to compete in the men’s 400m heats at the ongoing World Athletics Championships in Tokyo despite battling a hamstring injury.
Ogazi struggled to impress in the race as he finished fifth in his heat with a time of 45.97 seconds, far outside his personal best.
The heat was won by American Jacory Patterson in a blistering 43.90s, with Jamaica’s Rusheen McDonald (44.38s) and Italy’s Edoardo Scotti (44.45s) taking the other automatic qualifying spots.
Botswana’s Collen Kebinatshipi (44.48s) snatched the final fastest loser place, while Ogazi ranked 41st overall out of 48 competitors.
He revealed in a viral video that he communicated his injury status to the team officials but they pressured him to compete.
Ogazi said: “I told the Team Nigeria officials that I wasn’t prepared for this race, that my hamstring was bothering me, but they still insisted that I should go run. I did what I could and that’s the outcome,” Ogazi said in a viral video.
Ogazi said he trained comfortably on Monday and Tuesday but felt discomfort in his hamstring during Wednesday’s shake-out session.
He said: “I told them a day before the race, ‘I’m not prepared for this. I don’t think I could do anything if I go out there.’ But they said, ‘Just go out there and give it your all.
“Maybe coupled with the fact that I was diagnosed with COVID two weeks ago, I don’t know. But yeah, I wasn’t in good shape.”
The 20-year-old won the NCAA title earlier in the year, setting a season’s best of 44.43 and climbing to 15th on the global rankings.
Ogazi said he was happy with his performance this despite the disappointment at the World Championships.
He said: “I would say my season was impressive and superb because my main goal was to win the NCAA, and I got that done. After that, I was just going with the flow.”
He won the 200m and 400m at the 2023 African U18 and U20 Championships in Athletics in Ndola, Zambia. He won gold over 200 metres and 400 metres at the Athletics at the 2023 Commonwealth Youth Games in Trinidad and Tobago. He also won gold in the mixed 4 × 100 m relay as his Nigerian team set a new games record.
In March 2024, he set a new Nigerian under-18 record for the 400 metres, running 45.35s to finish second overall behind Christopher Morales Williams in Louisiana.
Tokyo 2025: Nigerian Athlete Blame Team Officials For Poor Performance is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
