Nigeria freestyle wrestler Odunayo Adekuoroye is keeping a very low profile as she begins her quest to win a medal at the Olympic Games in Paris, and exorcise the ghost of Tokyo three years ago.
A four-time world championship medalist, eight-time African champion, and three-time Commonwealth Games champion, Adekuoroye has done no interviews in the lead up to the Games, even keeping herself out of sight when the teams were officially announced and presented to the public last month.
This in sharp contrast to three years ago in Tokyo, when she was one of Nigeria's best prospects for an Olympic medal in the 57kg category, with gold being talked about openly and her media attention high.
Ranked No. 1 going into the Tokyo Games, the Nigerian appeared to have a clear path to the gold medal match when the pairings were announced as she had beaten every previous opponent in her pool.
She even had two documentary teams following her, from the international federation and another from the African federation.
But disaster struck in the quarterfinal. Leading Moldova's Anastasia Nichita 8-0 on the scorecard and looking all set to advance to the semifinals, Adekuoroye overreached, went for the kill and found herself pinned, losing to a victory by fall for the Moldovan whom she had defeated in all of their previous meetings.
"Everybody was stunned," Daniel Igali, president of the Nigerian wrestling federation, and an Olympic gold medalist, told ESPN.
"That was the most devastating moment I had ever experienced. It was probably one of my lowest moments in sport, because I thought we were close enough and, if anyone was close enough to win a gold medal, Odun was it."
Igali, who won his gold medal competing for Canada, said of the aftermath: "She was absolutely crushed. It was the lowest moment of her life, and she is just recovering."
The Nigeria contingent were so confident of a win that they'd started looking ahead past that match, which proved to be their downfall, Igali continued: "We looked at the bracket and I thought we were in the final already, because Adekuoroye had beaten everyone in our pool at least twice.
"So we were almost ready for Japan who were on the other side of the bracket. In fact, that morning, the president of the Japanese federation met me and shook my hand and said good luck. We were both aware that we would most likely meet in the final.
"And so when that loss happened, I was devastated. I was so worried for her and I virtually watched over her to make sure she [was ok]. It has been a long road but she has recovered and I hope we all learnt our lessons. This is another Olympics and we will see how she does."
Three years after, and ranked No.2 in the world, she is still considered one of the more realistic prospects for a medal, but the attention has been more muted, by choice.
That appears to be part of the lessons she has taken from that previous experience, to keep the focus strictly on what happens on the mat and shut out outside distractions.
Another lesson has been to shake off the mental block that that experience left on her. According to Igali, who was the national wrestling coach before becoming the federation president, the manner of her defeat haunted her to the point where she was questioning herself and reining in her aggression in some fights.
"It wasn't like she was over ambitious or she underrated her opponent," he said. "It's just one of those freak, once in a thousand times things that happen in sports and unfortunately, it happened to us.
"I just hope it doesn't make her too conservative in her matches this time. I have seen it in some of her matches and it is something we have been working on.
"We are trying to correct it because what she did in that match is something that I have always harped on," he added.
"That when you smell blood, finish it. Because wrestling is one of those sports where if you are too conservative, the referee might award points against you. She was up 8-0 and just needed two points to finish. As she was trying to take her down to get the points to finish the match, she got rolled over. I think the force she was going with was too much so the momentum was able to propel her over and that was how she got pinned.
"She still needs to keep that mindset that if she sees she can finish a match, she goes out and finishes it so she can conserve energy for the next match. We don't want her to temper her aggression and that mental part has to be overcome."
Adekuoroye will have a new set of fans cheering for her when she takes the mat. She was appointed assistant wrestling coach at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania earlier this year, with head coach Travis Spencer singing her praises.
Spender told ESPN: "Being able to have a world class competitor in our room is invaluable to our development program and her experience will have a lifelong impact on the women who wrestle for us. I look forward to cheering her on in Paris."
Igali says having some coaching chops will help her even though it can be a double-edged sword: "When you are a coach, and you combine those two roles, it gives you a better perspective.
"On the other side, as an athlete-coach, you lose a certain level of competitive edge. That is why we insisted that she come home for six weeks before the Olympics to focus on training. We were able to work on a lot of things when she came and I think the overall experience has made her even better.
"She is still our best chance, because she is ranked number 2 going into the Olympics."
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