Nigeria's Segun Toriola Becomes First African To Qualify For 7th Olympics

Nigeria's Segun Toriola has become the first African to qualify for his seventh appearance at the Olympic Games.

Toriola, who made his first appearance at the tournament in 1992 at the  Barcelona Olympic

Games overcame Togo’s Mawussi Agbetoglo at the ITTF-African Olympic Qualification Tournament in Khartoum, Sudan on Thursday.

Two places available, Segun Toriola recorded a straight games success (11-7, 12-10, 11-9, 11-6) in the vital decisive contest to reserve his place in the Brazilian city.

He also holds the record as the most successful African table tennis player at the Olympics when he made it to the fourth round of the men’s singles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in China.

Toriola has won more 20 gold medals for Nigeria at international competitions which include African and Commonwealth Games, as well as series of continental championships.

From four consecutive editions of the Africa Games, Toriola dominated the men’s singles event claiming gold medals at Harare 1995, Johannesburg 1999, Abuja 2003 and Algiers 2007 being the first athlete to achieve such feat.

An elated Toriola said: “I am very happy and so excited because I never believe I could be playing in my seventh Olympics of my career. I am happy that I made history as the first African to achieve this feat. It was a bit difficult for me because I played under a lot of pressure. I knew it was going to be easy because I was the favourite before the competition, but I was cautions as most of the players wanted to beat me. I ensured I was not too confident in all my matches and I played with a lot of caution. I am glad that I made it and I hope to now focus on the preparation which is vital to me as well.

Toriola now joins table tennis legends Jean-Michel Saive of Belgium, Jorgen Persson from Sweden & Zoran Primorac of Croatia in an elite group of players who have played at seven Olympic Games. ITTF