Toriola gallantly bow out in table tennis

Africa’s record making athlete, Nigeria’s Segun Toriola yesterday bowed out gallantly from the men’s singles event of table tennis at the ongoing Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Toriola, who made his seventh appearance at the Olympic Games as the first African to achieve such feat fought hard against world number 22, Japan’s Koki Niwa but the young Asian was made to work hard for his victory against the veteran.

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.”

In the women’s singles event, it was not a good day for Nigeria’s duo of Olufunke Oshonaike and Edem Offiong as they were shown the exit in the first round.

In the preliminary round, it was an easy win for Edem Offiong who walloped Fiji’s Sally Yee 4-0 (11-3, 11-8, 11-3, 11-2).

Despite recording a 4-3 win, Olufunke Oshonaike would not forget in a hurry what nearly caused her an early exit as she squandered a 3-1 lead and it took experience for her to overcome Lebanon’s Mariana Sahakian  with a 4-3 (8-11, 11-9, 11-7, 11-8, 8-11, 9-11, 11-8).

In the first round, Olufunke Oshonaike fell to Puerto Rico’s Adriana Diaz 4-2, while Edem Offiong was edged out by Belarus’ PAVLOVICH Viktoria 4-1.

Olufunke Oshonaike, who was Team Nigeria’s flagbearer during the opening ceremony admitted after managing to win her preliminary match that, ‘I’m so tired, I don’t know where I am. I didn’t get to bed until after 2.00am this morning, I feel like a bomb has hit me. Experience got me through today. I could not focus, I could not concentrate but I carried the Nigerian flag, I am through to the first round, I’m so happy!”