Monzavous Rae Edwards’ dream of partaking in the ongoing Olympic games in Rio, Brazil, has been dashed.
After fighting for 16 years to make it to the biggest sporting event in the world, Edwards will miss the games, not through a fault of his, but a dropping of the ball by the Nigeria’s National Olympic Committee (NOC).
Only two weeks ago, he excitedly shared news of receiving the official Nigerian Olympic kit and even showed off his recently acquired tattoo the five-ringed symbol of the Olympic Games.
That was how much the games meant to him.
Such was his ambition to be an Olympian that he launched, on his Snapchat, a series called ‘The Life of an Olympian’.
His journey into the Nigerian team started in 2014 after leaving the USA team, owing to his dual citizenship.
Edwards took his country switch as a fresh start and has taken advantage of the opportunity in the last two years — during which he won medals in the African championships and World (Continental) Cup Bronze medalist.
When he went for the trials of the Olympic games, he was viewed as the “old man”.
“There are [Nigerian] athletes here that were 10 years old when I signed my first Nike deal. There are athletes here that were seven years old when I first ran 10.16,” Edwards wrote on his social media account.
“Almost all the Olympic sprinters are and will be younger than me.”
And then, things took a turn for the worse about five days ago when he realised that he may not have been properly cleared for the Olympic games.
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