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THIS DAY IN HISTORY: NIGERIA WINS ITS 1ST OLYMPIC MEDAL

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BY KUNLE SOLAJA.

Till date, Nigeria has won a total of 25 medals spread across 16 Olympic Games since the Helsinki edition of 1952. The medals comprise of three gold, 10 silver and 12 bronze medals. 

But it was on this date, 10 August 1964 at the Tokyo Olympics that the very first medal was won by boxer, Nojim Maiyegun when he shared the bronze medal with Józef Grzesiak of Poland in the Light middleweight category. 

He thus ended Nigeria’s 12-year winless streak at the Olympics. 

At the Olympics the two losers in the semifinals are traditionally awarded the bronze medal, as there is no third place bout. 

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Now visually impaired and forgotten, Maiyegun lives in Vienna Austria where he emigrated to in 1971. Now aged 79, Maiyegun also won a bronze medal at the 1966 Commonwealth Games in Kinston, Jamaica among several other laurels he won for Nigeria. 

Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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