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While they have all tried in their own ways to be worthy ambassadors of Nigeria, particular mention must be made of our special athletes, who despite the constraints placed in their way by the lapses within the Nigerian sports establishment, have risen to the occasion to command the respect of the international audience.

While we applaud our athletes, we cannot fail to mention the pall cast over our performance at the Games by the drugs scandal where two of our athletes, Damola Osayomi and Samuel Okon tested positive for the same banned stimulant, Methylhexamine. One of the consequences of those incidents apart from the obvious blight on our integrity was Nigeria’s loss of the gold medal won by Osayomi in the women’s 100 metres event.

Had that medal not been withdrawn our total haul of gold medals would have stood at 12, a situation that would have made our participation this year our best ever performance at the Commonwealth Games.

As it is, we are left to rue what might have been. Still, there’s much to be said for the fact that given the efforts of the NSC to educate our athletes on the dangers of doping, we find ourselves falling short at the international arena. While the athletes may not have deliberately set out to use performance enhancing drugs, the point must be made that had there been better co-ordination of activities within the Nigerian camp in Delhi, the affected athletes would not have turned to the drug without the knowledge of team officials.

That said, we must salute the performance of Team Nigeria and advise that as we revel in our success, we must not lose sight of the fact that the next games in Glasgow, Scotland is only four years away. Like Ibrahim Bio, our Minister of Sports has said, the time to start preparing is now.

Beyond that, we must seize the moment and recognise that the London 2012 Olympic Games is less than two years away. With careful planning we can sustain the Delhi momentum and ensure that unlike our participation at the last two editions, we strike gold in London.

The Commonwealth Games ended yesterday in Delhi after two weeks of intense competition. For the Nigerian contingent, it has been a wonderful outing.

With 11 gold medals already in the kitty, the last of them coming yesterday courtesy of Kate Oputa’s victory over Australia’s Catherine Morrow in the finals of the Women’s Single Wheelchair Table Tennis event, Nigeria has surpassed its gold haul at the 2002 Manchester Games and 2006 Melbourne Games combined.

For many Nigerians, the performance in India has come as a surprise given the general lack of preparedness of our athletes in the months leading up to the games. Before the Nigerian contingent departed for India, there had been reports in the media of how lack of funds had made it difficult for the National Sports Commission (NSC), to send athletes abroad on tours to complement whatever training had been given to them by their coaches.

The biggest casualty in this regard was our boxing team, which was completely outclassed in Delhi. The team, which had been scheduled to tour Germany to perfect strategies for the games, had to settle for a camp somewhere in Benin City.

Expectedly, officials of the NSC are engaged in chest thumping and backslapping. They are gleefully claiming responsibility for our good fortune in India. The truth of the matter however, is that what has happened in Delhi is the result of our athletes’ determination to succeed. That the athletes excelled despite the obvious drawbacks is testimony to their will to excel.

They have proved by their accomplishments in Delhi that with the right mixture of self-belief and patriotic spirit success can be achieved even in the face of the most difficult of odds.