Team Nigeria begins quest for silverware at Birmingham 2022

The 2022 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXII Commonwealth Games kick-started on Thursday with an opening ceremony.

The Games taking place in Birmingham, England is scheduled to hold between July 28 and August 8.

The Commonwealth Games were known as the British Empire Games from 1930 to 1950, the British Empire and Commonwealth Games from 1954 to 1966 and British Commonwealth Games from 1970 to 1974.

Nigeria’s maiden participation in the games was in Auckland, New Zealand in 1950.

The country has since missed four editions in 1962, 1978 (in protest at New Zealand’s sporting policies towards South Africa during apartheid), 1986 and 1998 (due to suspension) over military rule.

Nigeria has won at least one medal at every Games attended while the first medal in 1950 was won by Joshua Majekodunmi in the High Jump event.

The highest number of medals won by Nigeria was at the 1994 edition in Victoria, Canada with 11 gold, 13 silver and 13 bronze medals for the country to finish fourth on the medal table behind Australia, Canada and England who were the top three nations.

The 1994 edition remains Nigeria’s best outing at the games with weightlifting contributing six of the gold medals, athletics amassed three gold medals, while boxing and wrestling added one gold medal each.

At the 2018 edition in Gold Coast, Australia, Nigeria finished ninth with nine gold, nine silver and six bronze medals being the second-best African team behind South Africa which finished sixth overall with 13gold, 11 silver and 13 bronze medals.

Already, Nigeria has listed 94 athletes that will compete in nine events out of the 20 medal hauling events at the games.

Also, 21 accompanying technical personnel will tutor the athletes in athletics, wrestling, judo, para-athletics, boxing, table tennis, para-table tennis, para-powerlifting, and weightlifting.

From the 94 athletes, athletics has the highest number of competitors of 33 with wrestling having 11.

Boxing and weightlifting are made up of nine athletes each, while para-powerlifting and table tennis comprise eight players respectively.

The para-table tennis team is made up of seven players, while para-athletics and judo have five and four athletes in their respective teams.