The Nigerian winter sport athlete faces qualification for Olympics
Nigerian athlete Simidele Adeagbo is just a step from qualifying for the winter Olympics.
Simidele who participates in the sport of 'Skeleton' hopes to fly Nigeria's flag at the upcoming Winter Olympics but faces a final race scheduled for Lake Placid, New York.
Skeleton is a sport at the winter Olympics in which the athlete rides a small sled referred to as sleigh or skeleton bobsled and slides down, faced down and slides through a frozen track.
According to This day, she said, “I read an article about how the women had this audacious goal of becoming Africa’s first-ever bobsled team to go to the Winter Olympics. I was super inspired, and instantly thought, I wonder if I could be a part of that? So, when I saw that, I was thinking, maybe they need a fourth person and maybe that fourth person could be me because there’s a history of track and field athletes going into bobsled.”
Provided she is among the qualified athletes, she would join fellow Nigerian women Ngozi Onwumere, Akuoma Omeoga and Seun Adigun who form a team of driver and brakemen that emerged as pioneer athletes from Africa to represent the continent in the bobsled category at the winter Olympics.