The rapturous applause that attended his exit from the Table Tennis event of the Rio Olympics could have been mistaken for a victorious ovation.
Nigeria’s legendary table tennis icon, Segun Toriola, exited the Rio Games but held his head high the way only legends do.
His conqueror, Japan’s Niwa Koki who beat Segun in the men’s singles event of table tennis, joined in acknowledging the star who raised his hands to return the sporadic applause.
Not long after his defeat, Toriola who made history by joining the elite stars’ club of players to have attended seven Olympics, turned out to be the beautiful bride who is sought after by many countries to sign as their coach.
“Countries are queuing to see who will outwit each other to land Toriola as coach,’’ a source said in Rio.
Interestingly, too, Nigeria is also desirous of landing the history maker as their coach.
President of Nigeria Table Tennis Federation, Enitan Oshodi, said they’ve always been interested and would want to concretise the deal, noting, however, that Toriola was still much fit to continue playing at the club level. “He’ll be an asset and has always been to our younger athletes. We’ll see how to make it even if it means living abroad and coaching from there as it were.
“The young man deserves all the accolades he gets. That is the result of discipline and hardwork. And honestly, they are the things lacking in our youth players. They are in a hurry to ride expensive cars without working for it,’’ Oshodi bemoaned.
Just as the International Table Tennis Federation plan to honour his historic 7th Olympic appearance, there are feelers that officials of Team Nigeria are also planning to roll out the red carpet to this eminent Nigerian Table Tennis.
To exit the competition, Toriola fell 11-9, 5-11, 7-11, 11-4, 6-11, 1-11 (4-2) to the Japanese star.
Prior to his second round encounter against the Japanese, Toriola had caused an upset in the first round when he bundled out Czech Republic’s Dimitrij Prokopcov.
Playing against a higher ranked Prokopcov in the first round of the Men’s Singles event, the 120 ranked African legend pulled off an impressive performance, his opponent 4-2 (8-11, 11-6, 11-8, 9-11, 11-8, 11-8) to end the Czech’s Olympic dream in Rio.
The 41 year-old Toriola, whose seventh Olympic Games appearance equals the table tennis record and makes him the most capped African Olympian said: “I’ve played him in the French League three times and I’ve lost every time. Today, I felt confident before the match, I played without any fear. My first attack was strong and he made mistakes, the main problem for me was that I made mistakes when playing short.”
