Nneka Ogwumike’s dream to play for Nigeria at the Olympics is over.
The international basketball federation turned down her application to compete for the African nation at next year’s World Cup and at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. It was the third time that FIBA has denied Ogwumike’s appeal to play for Nigeria. She had been trying to play for the country, where her parents were born, since the Tokyo Games in 2021.
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“After the second time trying to appeal I made my peace with it. The third time, I was like, let me say I gave it my all. I’m kind of at the point where I’m very much over it,” Ogwumike said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. “It’s unfortunate but there’s just certain things you can’t control.”
FIBA said in a statement to the AP that Ogwumike’s petition was denied.
Her first application was turned down because FIBA said she tried to switch from the U.S. to Nigeria too close to the start of the Olympics. The governing body then said her appeal to play in last year’s Paris Games came after the deadline and that she had been an important part of the U.S. national team in its victories in the 2014 and 2018 World Cup. FIBA tries to discourage athletes from playing for more than one senior national team in their careers.
“My involvement with USA is for them, their strongest point, but it doesn’t necessarily make the sense that it does to the individual that’s being penalized for it,” Ogwumike said. “You guys are going to continue using this excuse over and over again. I’m not about to beat a dead horse. I gave it an honest try so I feel fine about it.”
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USA Basketball gave its blessing for Ogwumike to try to play for Nigeria. She was left off the American team at the Tokyo Games team despite being one of the best players in the WNBA because of a knee sprain she suffered in June that year. Her recovery time would have had her back in time for the Olympics.
Ogwumike, who averaged 18.3 points and 7.0 rebounds this season for Seattle, wasn’t the only U.S. player to be denied a chance to play for Nigeria. Elizabeth Williams also had sought to play for them, but she too was denied. Ogwumike’s younger sister Chiney had her application approved with reservations.
“Because Chiney never played on a world championships team, that’s why there’s different statuses,” Nneka Ogwumike said. “They also told me that if I had gotten my passport a little earlier then my chances would have been better.”
Ogwumike said that when she was younger she was told by USA Basketball to not try to get a passport from another country.
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“It would hurt our chances of playing for USA,” Ogwumike said. “I wasn’t even trying to get it for basketball. I was just trying to get it because my parents are Nigerian. And I’m the first generation born here, so they kind of scared us into not getting passports from other countries from which our families were from.”
Nigeria has been one of the up-and-coming teams in international play in recent years. The country became the first African nation to reach the quarterfinals of the Olympics at the Paris Games before losing to the U.S. The addition of Ogwumike would have potentially given the team a better chance to advance even further, which is something that the 35-year-old former MVP feels hurt her case.
“That’s kind of the undercurrent of what they weren’t necessarily saying directly to us but we assumed was happening,” Ogwumike said.
Ogwumike hopes that her fight to try to play for Nigeria will help shed some light on the process and “how people decide to pick their nationalities when they want to represent their country.”
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