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Members of the Nigerian Olympic women's bobsled team, from left, Akuoma Omeoga, Seun Adigun and Ngozi Onwumere
Members of the Nigerian Olympic women's bobsled team, from left, Akuoma Omeoga, Seun Adigun and Ngozi Onwumere

Winter Olympics: The story of the Nigeria bobsledders who aren’t Nigerian

Much has been made of the Nigerian women’s bobsleigh team being the first African women to compete at the Winter Olympics.

But when the Nigerian team took to the PyeongChang sliding track last night in the first two of four runs, their story — while ­admirable, emotional even — was not the historic breakthrough it had been made out to be.

It may be unusual for women of African ancestry to compete at the Winter Olympics but the gold medal goes to the marketing flair behind them.

The members of this Nigerian team have stepped foot in Nigeria just once, to promote a crowd-funding drive and boost sponsorship to compete in the Winter Olympics. Team member Akuoma Omeoga, 25, ­defended her ­inability to speak any Nigerian languages, insisting the first words she heard as a baby were in her mother’s native tongue.

The team of three are all born- and-bred Americans, yet the publicity machine surrounding them compares them with the journey of the Jamaican army recruits at the 1988 Olympics that was fictionalised and eulogised in the movie Cool Runnings.

The vibrant Seun Adigun, now 31, hung up her spikes after representing Nigeria at the London 2012 Olympics and failing to make the final in the 100m hurdles.

Adigun joined the US bobsleigh association as a brakewoman and developed a wacky idea to form a team of Nigerian women. She convinced two other dual American-Nigerians, her Houston Univer­sity friend Ngozi Onwumere, 26, and Omeoga, who was at Minnesota, to join her quest.

“We just realised that it was so much bigger than ourselves,’’ Adigun said. What has followed has been a relentless drive to promote the team as a game-changer for African sport.

Adigun told reporters that making the Olympic Games has been pivotal in the history of ­Nigeria and Africa.

‘’Everyone knows how special this situation is,’’ she said after a training run this week.

“We have the same resources in Nigeria — the weight rooms, the track and field — that we use in Texas, which is why we’re really excited about being able to bring the sport back to Africa and show them that you don’t necessarily have to live where there’s ice and snow; you can do all your base training on the track or in the weight room, and then when it’s time, just like we have to do, we travel to where the ice is.”

Omeoga said the team’s connection to Nigeria was cultural as all three had grown up knowing their Nigerian heritage.

The reality is the local Nigerian newspapers have barely discussed their efforts: yesterday’s Daily Sun was more concerned with the ­national under-17 women’s football team, the Flamingoes, crashing out of the FIFA junior women’s World Cup; there was not a word about the Nigerian bobsledders who have consumed attention in the US and Europe.

Three years ago Adigun, originally from Chicago, crafted the first bobsleigh, the Maeflower, named after her stepsister Mae Mae who died in a car accident in 2009, and then registered a Nigerian Bobsleigh Association with Olympic officials to enable the team to qualify for the Games.

The Nigerian team has since picked up sponsorship from the Olympic sponsor VISA and clothing company Under Armour. They earned a spot on Beats by Dr Dre and an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. They train at Houston and, like the British women’s bobsleigh team, crowdfunded their way to South Korea.

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