By Philips Adefioye
Atlanta 1996 Olympic gold medallist, Chioma Ajunwa has described Team Nigeria’s preparations for  the  London Olympic Games as not too encouraging, saying that once one fails to plan, he or she is planning to fail.

Ajunwa,  in an exclusive interview with Saturday Vanguard sports in Lagos, said that the Olympics was a global event that every country needs to prepare for, even for more than the four years  people believe  is the  maximum number of years required.

The senior police officer said that it beats her imagination to hear that there is no grant  with which athletes could commence preparations, adding that she does not know when the country will learn.

“I heard there is no camping going on despite the fact that it is only four months to the London 2012 Olympic Games. There is an adage which says that if you fail to plan, it means you are planning to fail. The  Olympics is a global event that all  countries need to prepare for, even more than four years which we thought is the  maximum for preparations.

“It beats my imagination at times the way we approach a global event like the Olympics. We keep saying that there is no money. We have not started planning, I don’t know when we are going to learn, it is a pity.

“I believe that if we have people who have sports at heart, those who know what sports is all about, we should know that we should be preparing like other countries. For example, China said in Sydney in 2000 that immediately after the Sydney Olympics ends their preparation will start and that was exactly what they did. When they hosted  eight years after in 2008 in Beijing,  they almost cleared all the medals.

“Here we don’t want o spend money on preparing athletes, we want to embezzle money. This has always been the story, money has not been released, we have not seen the money and at the end of the day nothing will be seen.

Even while I was competing, that was the story they usually told us. It is a kind of story we are used to and they feel it will continue like that? Personally I don’t believe that up till this moment, just a few  months to the Olympics, money has not been released.  If it is so, glory be to God,” Ajunwa said.