Nigerian male basketball team have lost their last chance of progressing to the quarterfinals of the Tokyo Olympics.
Gatekeepers News reports that Italians have seen Nigerians off the men’s basketball competition at the ongoing Tokyo Olympics after defeating them 80-71 on Saturday morning.
D’Tigers squandered their chances of qualifying for the quarterfinals after failing to defeat Italy, despite losing their first two games in Group B.
Mike Brown’s men who finished bottom in their group game, suffered their first 84-67 defeat in the hands of Australia.
The 2015 Afrobasket champions were unable to salvage their second game as Germany scaled through with just a 7-point difference in the game which ended 92 – 99 in favour of the Germans.
It has been a heartbreaking competition for team Nigeria as Blessing Okagbare who earlier scaled through to the semifinals of women’s 100m race got suspended this morning after testing positive for Human Growth Hormone.
The hope of successful competition for the Nigerians was dampened earlier in the week as ten Nigerian athletes were banned due to failure to meet the minimum testing requirements under Rule 15 of the Anti-Doping Rules for ‘Category A’ federations.
However, D’Tigress can put a smile on the faces of Nigerians after defeating the host nation Japan in a do or die game on Monday, August 2 at 2:00 am Nigerian time, else the female basketballers will have to find their way home without a medal.
Nigerians are majorly looking up to, Enoch Adegoke in the men’s 100m race, female freestyle wrestler, Odunayo Adekuoroye; Ese Brume, in the female long jump category, and Oluwatobi Amusan in the female 100m hurdles category for medals.
