Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony: NBBF confirms D’Tigress indeed barred from boarding Team Nigeria’s delegation boat

The Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF, has confirmed that Nigeria’s senior national female basketball team, D’Tigress was not allowed to board the delegation’s boat for the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.

In a statement on Saturday, the NBBF, says the team was not briefed by the Nigeria Olympic Committee, NOC, and the Federal Ministry of Sports Development on the schedules and modalities for the march past ceremony, before the team made the two hours long journey from its base in Lille to Paris.

‘The fact was established that the team was not briefed by the NOC or the Sports Ministry on the schedules and modalities for the march past ceremony, before the team made the two hours long journey from its base in Lille to Paris.

‘The information we gathered from the NOC was that there are over 12,000 athletes at the Paris Olympics Games and only 7,000 athletes were approved for the march past by IOC and every country were given the same percentage of their total contingent size for the games for the march past.

‘Nigeria, with a contingent size of 88, were allotted 41 persons for the march past on the boat. The NOC/Ministry officials decided to share the 41 slots amongst the federations in Paris with the exception of Basketball and Football who were adjudged to be based away from Paris.

‘It is a known fact that the Sports Ministry had officially handed over all the individual athletes and teams representing Nigeria at the games to the NOC.

‘Therefore, it is expected that there should not be any gap in communication between the NOC and the federations, and that would have saved the national women’s basketball team, the stress, psychological pains and the inherent fatigue of travelling from Lille to Paris, which is not necessary, and only to be denied access to participate in the opening ceremony, when they were indeed fully prepared and ready,’ wrote the NBBF in the statement.

The NBBF says it has done the necessary preparations for D’Tigress to have a good outing at the games, ‘within the available time frame and resources at its disposal and remain committed to putting in more efforts to ensure that Nigeria is proudly represented at all times.’