Offiong Edem is the reigning African female Table Tennis champion. She has won many medals for the country and won three gold medals and one silver in the just concluded All African Games in Maputo, Mozambique. In this with Johnbosco Agbakwuru, Edem who is 26 years from Akpabuyo in Cross River State reveals her experiences as a table tennis player and her future ambition.

Women hardly pick interest in table tennis, especially in Nigeria. So, what inspired you?

Offiong Edem

I cannot fathom exactly, but I know I liked sports. It was when I picked interest and was playing at home that one of my friends told me that I could be coming to the Stadium here in Calabar to practice. I was initially skeptical because I was not looking at taking it as a profession but when I came to the stadium I saw people playing and I was so impressed and I thought I could be like them- that was how I picked interest in the game.

If you told that someday you will become the Africa female champion would you have believed it.

Frankly speaking, I would have waved it aside because I never thought of it. All I was thinking then was just to play my best.

Again, when I started going for major events, I never really won, I will sometimes get to the semi-final stage but will fall out of luck. I always have at the back of my mind whenever I lose that it is just hard luck, thinking that one-day, luck will come my way.

What was your experience like at the 2011 All Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique?

If Nigeria had not sent representatives to an earlier African championship which took place in Morocco, it would have been difficult for us. We thank the Cross River State Governor Liyel Imoke, who ensured that he sponsored us to that competition because it was at that event that we discovered some of the lope holes of our opponents that made us excel in the All Africa Games.

So, coming to see them in Maputo was no longer new to us, but after each team event we had to go back to critically review the game. It was a difficult situation because the Egyptians were at their best, but thank God we made it. Even back home, despite the bad tennis tables at the Ibadan training centre we were able to put in our best.

When you were about to face the best table tennis players in Africa at the just concluded All African Games, what went through your mind?

Nothing actually because they are afraid of me, I am always the one at the edge because everyone is afraid playing with me so I always became scared at that point. So, I will have to put in extra efforts because if I lose they have a lot to gain while my position will be at stake.

Anytime I am playing with my female colleagues I play as if I am playing with a man, I put in all my best. If I lose, I know I put in my best but this time I was bent on winning the gold.