We were told that when Nathanael was told about Jesus of Nazareth, he responded with some guile, “what good can come out of Nazareth?”

The truth however, is that “From Nazareth came peace. From Nazareth came courage. From Nazareth came Christ” 

I am however, not comparing our world beater and record breaker, Oluwatobiloba Amusan to Jesus Christ but just using her case at the recently held World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, USA to situate the nonsensical thoughts of former 400m world record holder, Michael Johnson on her excellent performance in the women’s 100m hurdles.

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To Johnson and some other BBC pundits who watched as Amusan awed her fellow athletes and the world at large, “ what good can ever come out of Nigeria?”

Because Nigeria is not only a third world country but a black African country, Johnson and his cohorts didn’t believe Amusan had the capacity to win a World Championships gold medal how much more shatter a World Record in a race the much more recognized countries like USA, Jamaica and Britain were participating.

They were too blind to see that Amusan was not only an African and Commonwealth champion in the event but was among the top 5 in the same event at the same competition held four years earlier in Edmonton and at the 2020 Tokyo   Olympics however, hosted in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic that ravaged the world at that time.

When other World Records were broken by other athletes from some other countries, Johnson and the BBC pundits never rationalised their feat but because Amusan is from Nigeria where nothing good is expected, they had to query the workability of the timing device.

Suddenly her spike shoes which was also worn by other athletes and wasn’t a subject of controversy nor banned by the athletics world body became a subject of debate. Again their argument on the shoes she used fell flat on their faces as the argument about the timing device had earlier been.

Tobi, as she is popularly known, showed her critics and the doubting Thomasses that from Nigeria comes courage, determination, perseverance, doggedness   and the will to succeed. 

All these attributes in Tobi was why despite thinking of throwing in the towel like her Jamaican counterpart, Danielle Williams said after the race, she told herself that she “will come back stronger”, and prophesied that she was an “in-coming World Record holder”.

It was nothing but self belief and weeks of hard work that could have   given her the confidence to run the way she did and has become the story that she is today.

Johnson, who said after the World Record feat that “I am not believing these times,” is not alone in this bad belle against Nigeria. Carl Lewis, another great American athlete in his days, also showed disdain for Nigeria and was alleged to have helped cause the decline of her athletes’ prowess in the sport.

Lewis was scared the way Nigerian sprinters were contesting for honours with them in competitions and probably felt that Nigerians were benefiting from the exposure to good facilities they were getting by virtue of being in America on their universities scholarship facilities.

He allegedly advised the American authorities to discontinue the scholarship programmes if they don’t want Nigerian athletes to become their problem in future. And his advice was heeded, we were told, and that began the fall of the standard of our athletes. 

Before this time, Nigerians and not the Jamaicans gave US athletes a run for their money. That was in the days of Chidi Imo, Olopade Adenekan, Davidson Ezinwa and his brother Osmond, Innocent Egbunike, Falilat Ogunkoya, Mary Onyali, Faith Idehen, Christie Opara-Thompson among others.

To continue to churn out potential world beaters, the government should return the National Sports Commission to be manned by sports technocrats who will draw up programmes for real sports development and not the competition driven system we have now.

A Sports Commission that will return school sports to the front burner and ensure we have a year round competition with intermittent holidays like the Cubans do to keep their athletes in shape all the time.

When school sports becomes a culture and we have a pool of talented athletes who will be supported with Olympic solidarity funds through the assistance of the Nigeria Olympic Committee, NOC, our athletes will compete favourably with the best in the world. That way people like Johnson will not be shocked to the extent of disparaging our athletes who stun the world like Tobi did in Oregon penultimate weekend. 

Nigerians and Tobi in particular should not take Johnson’s innuendos seriously because Sebastine Coe, President of World Athletics and a World Record holder also in his days, yearned for the breaking of the old records from the 1980s as the 2022 World Athletics Championships began on July 28.

According to Coe the breaking of the old records was possible following the advent of super spikes and faster tracks.

The athletes who broke world records in Oregon were only responding to the challenge of the athletics boss who will definitely be happy that his wish came to pass, including the African 4×100 women relay record held by Nigeria and lowered by another Nigerian quartet of Joy Udo-Gabriel, Favour Ofili, Rosemary Chukwuma and Grace Nwokocha.

That is what matters and not the bad belle exhibited by a disgruntled Johnson who isn’t happy his 43.03secs 17-year old 400m World Record was sent to the archives at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil  by South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk.