Rio Olympics: Legend Toriola Bows Out As ITTF Plans Ceremony For Nigerian

The legendary performance of Segun Toriola at the ongoing Rio 2016 Olympic Games came to a glorious end on Sunday August 7 after the record making African was edged out by Japan’s Niwa Koki in the men’s singles event of table tennis.
Despite his exit, the world table tennis ruling body, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) plans to organise a ceremony in Rio to honour the Nigerian for his Olympic feat after making his seventh appearance at the Olympic Games being the first African to achieve the feat.
Toriola who is ranked 120 in the world, had on Saturday August 6 bundled out Czech Republic’s Dimitrij Prokopcov in the first round.
Playing against a higher ranked Prokopcov in the first round of the Men’s Singles event, the African legend pulled off an impressive performance against his opponent with a 4-2 (8-11, 11-6, 11-8, 9-11, 11-8, 11-8) win to end the Czech’s Olympic dream in Rio.
In the second round tie against the Japanese ranked 22 in the world, Toriola put up a good fight as 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.

The 41 year-old Toriola, whose seventh Olympic Games appearance equals the table tennis record and makes him the most capped African Olympian stated after beating the Czech: “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, Nigeria’s duo of Olufunke Oshonaike and Edem Offiong were shown the exit in the first round after they put up good performance in the preliminary 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!”