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| Scholastic Sports & RecThursday, April 10, 2008 8:09 PM CDT |
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U High grad's family unconcerned about Olympic Games security
NORMAL — Expect the controversy and protests aimed at the Olympic torch relay and this summer’s games in China to continue. So says the patriarch of Bloomington’s first family of the Olympics, Chika Nnamani, father of 2004 volleyball Olympian Ogonna Nnamani, a University High School graduate. What the elder Nnamani does not expect is that his daughter and other athletes from around the world will be in harm’s way if they qualify for the Beijing Games. “China doesn’t want that to happen,” said Nnamani, the assistant vice president of student affairs and director of residential life at Illinois State University. Nnamani said no future Olympic host will be taken by surprise after the tragedy of the 1972 Munich Olympics, where 11 members of the Israeli delegation were killed by eight Arab terrorists. “I don’t think any country would be that daft not to be prepared,” said Nnamani, who attended the Athens Olympics, where security was tight. “The Olympic Village was in the middle of nowhere. It was not like passing through Bloomington to go to Springfield. For us to go to the Olympic Village, we had to give our name and passport to intelligence people to scrutinize.” Nnamani said China needs to brace itself because the Olympic Games have put it on the world stage. “Once on the world stage, people want to exact as much influence or highlight the dirty laundry China may have,” said Nnamani, who was born in Nigeria. China can’t expect to send the torch relay through Europe and the U.S., “bastions of freedom and bastions of liberty that celebrate individual rights,” without much controversy, he said. “China, when all is said and done, has the opportunity to really know how ordinary citizens from all over world feel about their policies in Tibet and other human rights violations,” Nnamani said. “As tough as it may seem, it’s about to have an impact as they move on with relationships with the rest of the world. By and large, the Games will bring a lot of floodlight on China. China will have to tidy up its act before the actual Games come.” Ogonna Nnamani expects to make her first visit to Beijing with Team USA in May. The national team coach is “Jenny” Lang Ping, who was born in China. Ogonna Nnamani currently plays professionally for an Italian club, Asystel Novara, which has matches in Spain, Switzerland and Turkey, among other countries. “In those places, even though there are Americans (on the team), they are really seen more as an Italian team,” Chika Nnamani said. “So they don’t have any more security than teams deem necessary. “But for the U.S. national team, when they were in Japan to qualify for the Olympics as a national team, I don’t believe there was unusual security. The host country didn’t want to be embarrassed (by an attack on athletes). They know their obligations and take it seriously.” Ogonna Nnamani will find out this summer if she will again play in the Olympics. She is expected to make a two-day stop in Bloomington later this month or early next month. “She keeps saying, ‘I can’t wait to eat Mom’s cooking,’” her father said. E-mail this story | Print this story | Search archives | RSS Show comments |  Hide comments | Hide comments on all stories |
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