THE Minister of Sports, John Enoh, has explained why Ese Ukpeseraye had to borrow a bike from the German team before she could participate in one of the Paris Olympics events.

Enoh stated that the track race was reallocated to the Nigerian team after another country was disqualified and the Nigerian team would need special equipment, which, if paid for, would take months to be delivered.

However, many Nigerians did not agree with his claim and said the President Bola Tinubu-led government only dented the nation’s image with the incident.

“My attention has been called to a post on social media by Ese Ukpeseraye. After reading the post and some follow-up comments, I swung into action. Ese’s post seems to have been grossly misunderstood perhaps also because it didn’t seem to give proper context to the matter in perspective. It is important I make some clarifications.

“Abinitio, Team Nigeria qualified for one road race in cycling and prepared for it in terms of training and the appropriate competition equipment. Team Nigeria was fully prepared for this road race until two weeks ago, after the Cycling team with the rest of Team Nigeria had already left for the Olympics, when a communication from the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) was received reallocating additional slots to the Cyclist Federation of Nigeria (Kerin and individual sprint).

“This reallocation to Nigeria was due to the disqualification of a country, leaving Nigeria as the next eligible to make the list of qualified countries to compete. Unfortunately, this additional slot required the use of different competition equipment in terms of biking,” he stated.

He said to get Ese to compete, the federation through Ese’s Club in Europe, and working with a German-owned company, got a ‘Track Bike’ for the cyclist.

Reacting to the minister’s response, some Nigerians saw it as a failure on the part of the government to make sufficient provisions for every athlete representing the country at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

Expressing disappointment, a Nigerian X user, @MrsZanga said, “Are we not supposed to have all the competition equipment in case we get called up impromptu like this?”

Another user, @Spotlight_Abby said, “I find it inexcusable that they couldn’t get Ese a customised Keirin cycle bike two whole weeks after her participation was approved.

“Fuji Bikes, Cinelli, Cervelo sell these bikes and trust me, nothing is too hard to get if you know where to look. These companies are prepared for times like this and they’re not building from scratch.

“This also means Ese never had this bike to train with in the first place. So the official plan was really just to borrow?”

Another user, @CannonleoGeek said, ”That bike is sold in high-performance shops in Paris there and Toulouse. There is nothing like three months delivery.”

The ICIR reported on Thursday, August 8 that the Nigerian cyclist explained via her official X account how she got stranded and had no bike to participate in the competition but was saved by the German team.

Ukpeseraye expressed gratitude to the German cycling team after the team provided a bike for her to use for the scheduled keirin and sprint events.

The Nigerian team has faced a series of setbacks since the Olympics games started on July 26.