By Victor Kanayo
The third Nigerian table tennis player Offiong Edem exited the ongoing 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France.
Edem ended her Olympics sojourn in the round of 64, in a 0-4 defeat to Brazil’s Bruna Takahashi in the women’s singles on Sunday evening.
The result means that Edem joined Quadri Aruna and Olajide Omotayo, who both lost on Saturday and were eliminated from the competition.
Nigeria’s last representative in the table tennis event, Fatimo Bello, will compete against Jia Nan Yuan of China in the women’s singles Round of 64 at her debut Olympics.
Africa’s Number One Slump
Quadri had lost 3-4 in the first round at the South Paris Arena to Eduard Ionescu of Romania.
Aruna’s hopes of repeating his Rio 2016 quarter-final performance went up in flames when the 20-year-old Ionescu made it a thrilling Olympic debut for himself, after rallying back 0-3 down to win the number one African player.
Earlier in the day, another Nigerian Omotayo lost 1-4 to Iranian Noshad Alamiyan.
Boxing Corner
Africa’s shaky start in the Paris Olympics boxing tournament took another downturn when Nigeria’s Adam Olaore was bundled out by Kazakhstan’s 2022 Asian champion, Aibek Oralbay, at the North Paris Arena in a pre-quarter heavyweight fight on Sunday.
Olaore was the remaining Nigerian boxer at the ongoing Olympics.
Oralbay was in the driver’s seat from the start of the fight, knocking down Olaore towards the end of the round which he won 10-5.
The Kazakh boxer remained dominant, landing more heavier and clean shots to win the second and third rounds 10-5 for a unanimous 5-0 decision.
He’s now through to the quarter-final and is likely to fight Cuba’s two-time Olympic champion Julio Cesar La Cruz in the quarters.
With Olaore’s defeat, Africa now remains with 20 boxers following the elimination of Egypt’s bantamweight Yomna Ayyad and Nigeria’s African Games lightweight champion Cynthia Ogunsemilore who was suspended for a doping offence.
