Team Nigeria Ogunsemilore dreams of podium finish at Paris 2024 Olympics
Team Nigeria Cynthia Ogunsemilore found boxing by mistake. She had a scrawny physique, nowhere near athletic, and was written off many times, not least by herself.
A native of Bariga, a hotspot for street fights and gang conflicts, most of her life was a fight of its own. Poverty, hunger, and frustrations dogged her and her four siblings.
At the age of 12, she began boxing. With her father’s approval, Ogunsemilore kept fighting, urged on by her coach, fighting back prejudices, hitting every taunt with a punch.
“I am from Bariga, and boxers from there [believe] that they don’t have futures, they are like touts. Since I started boxing, everything has been hard for me. But as a Bariga girl, I am rugged, I won’t quit,” she told Olympics.com amid tears of joy and pain, at the 2023 Africa Boxing Qualifiers.
She believes the sport, as cliché as it may sound, saved her.
“It’s not easy being a female boxer in Bariga. The men would tell me, ‘You are supposed to go get married, but you are here training, you should go have a baby or find some serious work." - Cynthia Ogunsemilore to Olympics.com
"So many blamed my father for putting me in boxing. I often said, 'What a man can do, a woman can do better'.”
The 21-year-old was unbeaten at the Africa Boxing Qualifiers in Dakar, where the Nigerian earned a Paris 2024 Olympic quota in the women’s 60kg.
When a local coach, Tajudeen Kassim, suggested she try boxing, there were mixed feelings. Her dad hoped the ring would offer her some stability after a difficult childhood, while the coach saw an opportunity to mold the teen into one of the most exciting talents in Nigeria.
“My coach told my dad, ‘Give me this girl, let me train her’. My dad said, ‘But she is too small’. I also thought I was too small. But after seeing other girls in training, I told myself and my coach, ‘I can do it!’” she recalled.
That moment also ignited the Olympic fire in her. “That’s when I had in my plan and my dreams, something I had been hearing a lot, the Olympics.”
The 'no quit' mindset that she’d built over the years was often tested.
“There are times that I would try to quit… I was blaming my coach that he's not doing anything [to advance] my boxing career.”
“But it’s because of my family too… We were just surviving, managing ourselves,” she continued as her voice trailed off as she broke down in tears.
“My sisters and I… we struggle to feed my family. I wanted to be the one that would take them from poverty. I know with time everything will be fine.”
Ogunsemilore went ahead to earn her place in the Nigerian team.
But even the bronze at the 2022 Commonwealth Games did little to prove herself as one of her nation’s rising talents.
“After the Commonwealth Games, I said, 'If my country should call me for the Olympics Qualifier, I was sure I would qualify.'
"And after winning the Trials I promised that I would come here not to play but to qualify and show that I am not the type of girl they thought I was and that there are people from Bariga that are good and talented.”
Securing an Olympic qualification berth as a finalist in her weight category was the thrill of her lifetime.
“I had it in my dreams that I wanted to go to the Olympics, and I wanted to be an Olympian….but you know, I always thought I would just be picked and go to the Olympics directly. Not knowing that I was going to face some challenges in and out of the ring.”
She was unbeaten in Dakar after winning the final against Algerian Khelif Hadjila, with performances that went above and beyond her own expectations.
“I’m very proud of myself… I did it! I did it...,” Ogunsemilore said.
She is the second Nigerian woman to earn a qualification spot for an Olympics, after Edith Ogoke at London 2012.
