Two of the most revealing Making of Champions trips this year have been the visits to Portugal and Spain, to meet former Nigerian Athletes, Francis Obikwelu and Glory Alozie, both of whom are Olympic and World Championship Medalists for either Nigeria or their adopted countries. Their stories of how they came to switch nationalities to represent Portugal and Spain respectively really cut to the heart of why Nigeria has not performed well on the world stage in Athletics in the last 15 years…
On these particular trips to visit them, we see Obikwelu still training with the Portuguese National Team in Faro (he is regarded as a sprint legend in Portugal, after winning their only medal in the 100m at the Olympics, a Silver at Athens 2004), while Alozie was in Madrid wrapping up her coaching qualifications – on the day we met with her, she was having practicals in the shot put, though she came to fame as a 100m hurdler, an event in which she won Silver at Sydney 2000 for Nigeria (only missing out on the Gold Medal by 0.03 seconds!)
Song: Omo Naija
Artists: Jamix Ft Terry G, 9ice & M.I.
Origin: Nigeria
