If our athletes had the same mindset as our economists, there is no chance that they would even win any wooden or even charcoal medals. ILLUSTRATION | JOSEPH NYAGAH | NMG
Seeing African athletes doing well in the Paris 2024 Olympics and other Olympiads before, one wonders what they do right that Africans in other fields don’t. Why do determined individuals in sports who take on the world, win, and some like Joshua Cheptegei consistently, but African economists with Phds for example keep failing their countries miserably?
It isn’t like the athletes are favoured. You have probably seen some interviewers concentrating on a bronze winner from another continent and ignoring the African gold medalist. African athletes, especially those based at home, face many odds against them, unlike the economists who usually study on lucrative scholarships after their first degree.
