By Onochie Anibeze in London
The last batch of members of Team Nigeria to the London 2012 Olympics are being expected today after a fruitless campaign at the summer Games.

Nigeria took part in Table Tennis, Boxing, Taekwondo, Basketball, Weightlifting, Wrestling and Athletics and 51 athletes were taken to London, none won a medal.

Before their departure, hopes were raised as some of the athletes, particularly the likes of Blessing Okagbare (100m, 4x100m relay and Long Jump) and Chika Chukwumerije in taekwondo had shown glimpses of world class athletes Nigerians could bank on.

The Women’s 4×400 relay team, the Wrestlers, weightlifters and the table tennis teams were all touted to be medal hopefuls.

When competition began in London, the table tennis players and boxers were the first set of athletes to return from the games. Since their early exit, things never looked up for Team Nigeria as the entire contingent fell in quick succession to better prepared athletes of other competing countries.

As they return today, there will be calls for an inquest as to why the country performed so woefully at the quadrennial games.

Country               Gold    Silver  Bronze   Total

1 USA                  46        29        29           104

2 China                 38        27        12           87

3 Great Britain       29        17        19           65

4 Russia                24        25        33           82

5 Germany            11        19        14           44

6 Japan                 7          14        17           38

7 Australia             7          16        12           35

8 France                11        11        12           34

9 South Korea       13        8          7             28

10 Italy                  8          9          11           28

11 Kazakhstan       6          0          3             9

12 Japan                5          14        15           34

13 Netherlands      5          5          8             18

14 Iran                  4          4          1             9

15 New Zealand    4          3          5             12

16 North Korea     4          0          1             5

17 Jamaica            3          4          3             10

18 Belarus             3          3          4             9

19 Cuba                3          3          3             9

20 Ukraine            3          1          6             10