For the first time in history, an African bobsleigh team has qualified for the Winter Olympics. From the 2012 Summer Games in London, the journey of three Nigerian women led to the ice channel of Pyeongchang thanks to crowdfunding. The story is reminiscent of Jamaica’s bobsleigh heroes of 30 years ago, but for the athletes themselves it is much more than just a sporting success.
Disney, who specializes in cartoon mice and children’s stories for a long time, quickly realized that this story was ripe for film: four Jamaicans, who apparently make little out of sun, palms and dream beaches, regularly throw themselves into a bobsleigh and rush down the ice channels of this world. Their goal: the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary, Canada.
Laughed at by the competition at first, the team from the Caribbean actually managed to qualify for the Olympic Games – and thus laid the foundation for Disney’s 1993 movie “Cool Runnings”. About 150 million dollars were spent on the story, and even today the film is known beyond the borders of sport.
Now, exactly 30 years after the Jamaican fairy tale, the next winter wonder story is coming up. Last November, a Nigerian women’s bob team qualified for the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea.
Seun Adigun, Ngozi Omwumere and Akuoma Omeoga are the names of the ladies who write history with their Olympic participation. For the first time ever, a Nigerian team will be competing in the Winter Games, and for the first time ever, an African team will be competing in the Olympic Ice Canal.
“We come from a continent where no one would have the idea of running down an ice channel at 80 or 90 miles per hour,”notes Adigun. Every morning she wakes up thinking “God help me, what am I doing right now?”as she admitted to the BBC.
Adigun is not only the pilot of the two-man bobsleigh, but also the initiator of this curious venture. With a unique curriculum vitae: Growing up near Chicago, the daughter of Nigerian parents made a name for herself in athletics. As Africa’s 100-meter-hurdles champion in Africa, she qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London – before deciding to change her wallpaper.
She traded the orange plastic of a career path on which Adigun had celebrated her successes up to this point in time for an open tunnel of ice. In 2014 she finally started her bobsleigh training – with a home-made wooden vehicle called Mayflower.
Adigun was soon able to convince her current colleagues, who also grew up with Nigerian background in the USA and have professional track and field experience, of the idea. Problem: The trio needed about $150,000 to make the dream of the Olympics come true. Money they didn’t have at their disposal at the time.
You shouldn’t be afraid of risks,”Adigun once said:” Sometimes you’re standing in front of a door and you don’t know what’s on the other side. You won’t find out until you open the door.”
So Adigun, pusher Omwumere and substitute Omeoga fought on. They used crowdfunding to collect the money they needed. And indeed, with the help of their fans and a credit card company, the team collected enough money to be able to steal their way to South Korea financially.
sportswoman
Greatest successes
Seun Adigun
Gold at the African Championships (2010), Gold at the All-Africa Games (2011), Qualification for Olympic Games (2012)
Ngozi Onwumere
Gold (4×100 meter relay) and silver (200 meter run) at All-Africa Games 2015
Akuoma Omeoga
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When the qualifiers in Salt Lake City, Whistler and Calgary – the place where the Jamaican bobsleigh riders made history in 1988 – also reached the sporting goals, the miracle was perfect:”This is a huge milestone for the sport in Nigeria”, Adigun cheered at ESPN.
But the 30-year-old’s adventure is not only about sporting success. She wants to show other people that “nothing is impossible with faith, a little help and stamina,”as she stressed in the Daily Mail a year ago.
Brakeman Omwumere also has a higher aspiration:”We are strong people, we can achieve everything we want to do,”she said:”It’s always about the big picture and making Nigeria look good”.
They are already doing very well with the latter. In the limelight, they all make an excellent figure and win more and more sympathies in their appearances on numerous talk shows when they enter the studio in a radiant and dancing manner, as for example with the famous talker Ellen DeGeneres.
Nevertheless, the Nigerian national team of three does not travel to Pyeongchang under the motto “To be there is everything”. For the competition on 20. Adigun made clear to Reuters in a statement on February 2:”Our main goal is to be as strong as possible and to attack the podium”.
Adigun is certain that they can achieve their goals. After all, as former sprinters they had already proven their nerve strength and, in addition, enough power to carry the sled with momentum towards the valley.
But no matter how the Olympic Games end, the story of the Nigerian women is already ripe for film and reminds us of their Jamaican predecessors:”To be compared to a group of people who 30 years later are still being celebrated for something legendary is simply fantastic,”says Adigun.