Simidele Adeagbo, the first Nigerian Winter Olympian at PyeongChang 2018 and the first African and black female skeleton racer at the games, is using the sport to uplift other young women.

In 2008, Simidele Adeagbo was determined to qualify for the Beijing Olympics. Every muscle, every cell, in her body was tuned and trained to accomplish this dream.
A place at the world sporting event would be a culmination of a decade of sweat and tears in athletics, a journey she began while in elementary school.
The catalyst was winning a race at school that propelled Adeagbo to become a four-time National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion as well as the triple jump record-holder for the University of Kentucky.
Adeagbo put everything she could into her Olympic dream but destiny made her fall short, literally. She failed to qualify for the Olympics by eight inches and just like that, it was all over.
“I went all out and I put everything I could into qualifying. I worked with the best coaches and best facilities. I had two good tries and I just came up short. Of course I was disappointed but I was satisfied with my effort and at that point, I was ok with moving on in life and walking away from athletics,” says Adeagbo.
She moved to South Africa to begin her new life away from competitive athletics until December 2016 when things took on a new course.
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Nigerian women’s bobsled team members Seun Adigun, Ngozi Onwumere and Akuoma Omeoga made news headlines with an audacious goal to become the first team from Africa to qualify for the winter Olympics.
“As I was reading it, I felt really inspired and excited and I thought it was really cool. So something inside me rose up and I thought I wonder if it could be something I could be a part of?” recalls Adeagbo.
The bigger picture for Adeagbo was recognizing how significant it would be to make history as part of the Nigerian team, however the initial days of training were anything but smooth. She tried out for the team in August 2017 and was subsequently invited to come back to a camp in Canada.
“That was when I realized that bobsleigh wasn’t going to work out. The timing was not right to join the team. The team was already made.”
But before her Olympic hopes would be crushed again, someone introduced Adeagbo to skeleton-racing, a winter sliding sport in which a person rides a small sled, known as a skeleton bobsled, at speeds of about 90 miles per hour.
“I tell people to imagine a frozen water slide because that is kind of similar to what it might be like. The tracks are about a kilometer to a kilometer-and-half long. Depending on the track, it generally takes anywhere from 50 seconds to a minute to finish the race. Sometimes, when I am driving down the highway, I realize I am going slower down the freeway than I am on my skeleton sled driving down the track,” says Adeagbo.
The track has a number of twists and turns and the goal is to get down as quickly as possible, with the fastest person declared winner.
“Your face is usually about an inch from the ice at any given point in time. The irony of the sport is you are on the edge of danger and control at any given point in time. The best way to be in control is to be relaxed,” says Adeagbo.
Adeagbo started training as a skeleton racer in September 2017 and in 2018, became the first Nigerian to compete at the Winter Olympics in February and the first black woman to compete in the sport.
“It was an amazing accomplishment knowing that nobody had done it before and it just spoke to the possibilities out there. I was filled with pride when I qualified and knowing all the hard work that had gone into it, not only the four months before the Olympics but everything I had worked hard for during my track and field days, contributed to that moment,” recalls Adeagbo.
It’s her zeal to step out of the comfort zone that makes her successful today even if it means playing the role of a body double for one of her sports heroes, Serena Williams.
“That was an interesting opportunity, I got discovered one day when I was at work. Someone came to me and asked if I would like to audition for the role. I auditioned and that was really cool playing Serena for that day,” recalls Adeagbo.
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Besides sport, Adeagbo is paving the way for Africa’s youth by inspiring the next generation of girls in Nigeria through a master class developed by the Youth Empowerment and Development Initiative (YEDI).
As she puts it: “I am passionate about helping people with my God-given gifts and talents, and to inspire people to enjoy the gift of athleticism and achieve their fullest potential.”
It took 20 years for Adeagbo to achieve her dream of qualifying for the Olympics and with everything she learned on that ride, her goal is to encourage Africa’s youth to never give up on their Olympic-sized dreams – no matter what.

SKELETON-OLY-2018-PYEONGCHANG

The First Lady Of Skeleton

When a 10-year-old Dimitri Hadjipaschali started playing computer games his parents scoffed at the idea. Hadjipaschali was housebound, after breaking his ankle skateboarding, when he discovered his brother playing a game called Counter-Strike. This proved to be an existential moment on crutches; gaming became Hadjipaschali’s life.
“I just needed a crosshair and Counter-Strike was the game I kind of stuck with. I decided I was going to be a full-time gamer when I joined [eSports team] Bravado in 2008&#8230; I was doing it full time, trying to win competitions. Every time it came to a tournament I was trying to win. Every time I would come in second or third it was the worst day of my life for me. That’s when I knew,” he says.
Eight years later, Hadjipaschali is one of the rising stars in the next online craze in Africa. In bedrooms across the continent a generation of professionals is playing electronic sports, or eSports, for a living.
Competitive online gaming draws millions via streaming websites and where as much as $20 million can be at stake. It’s a bit like the Olympics for geeks and eSports has its own disciplines. Hadjipaschali is the captain for Bravado’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, or CS GO, team.
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This is a first-person shooter game where a team of five tries to thwart bombers. In tournaments, teams play off in a best-of-three taking turns to attack and defend. The more games you win, the stronger your team becomes.
CS GO is one of the most popular games in South Africa. Globally it is the fourth highest-earning eSports game, with 5,396 professional players competing for $19.16 million in prizemoney at 1,710 tournaments, according to esportsearnings.com.
In Africa, this multi-million-dollar eStory is just beginning. The competition in South Africa is fierce. For years, gamers have battled for a few spots in international competition. That’s where the money is.
This is why Hadjipaschali is at a team boot camp in the cold hills of Meyersdal, south of Johannesburg. The team is here to train for the Electronics &amp; Gaming Expo (EGE) in Cape Town. On the line is a shot at the international arena – an all-expenses-paid spot at the Electronic Sports World Cup and a chance to win $75,000, in Paris at the end of October.
“If we don’t take first place [in Cape Town] we don’t know when this opportunity will come again,” he says.
It’s going to be a long night for the team. On any given day, Hadjipaschali practices nine hours a day, often finishing at dawn. This weekend, with the promise of Paris looming, they will push even harder.
“A boot camp is for us to be more focused, to get more work done. It forces us to work when we are next to each other.”
It has been an historic and lucrative year for eSports in South Africa.
From Johannesburg is Barry ‘Anthrax’ Louzada, one of the old hands – which doesn’t take too long in this business. Involved in the industry since 1999, Louzada is called the South African godfather of eGaming. He slogged it out for 10 years as a competitive gamer around the world.
“Two years ago, you were at maybe a R100,000 ($7,000) total cash prize money for an event, because there was only one event a year. Now you are looking at over R2 million ($142,000) in just one year,” says Louzada.
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These days Louzada is a shoutcaster, in English that means he gives live commentary on the sport.
“When I started out, it was a case of people driving around going to each other’s houses [barbequing] and LANing (network gaming). The internet wasn’t workable in this country for us to actually do any sort of online competing or playing. Now you have got hundreds and thousands of people coming to conventions,” he says.
As Louzada’s days as a competitive gamer are ending, Hadjipaschali’s are just beginning. If you saw Hadjipaschali walking down the street you wouldn’t think he was one of the top online gamers in the country. But those in the know ask for his autograph. For Hadjipaschali it’s more about the rush than the cash.
“In the beginning you can feel that pressure, that big match temperament, where you are not at the comfort of your own home behind your computer at your desk. When you are at home your hands aren’t shaking and it’s easier to play.”
Hadjipaschali’s next step on the road to fame and dollars was at a tournament in the cavernous Cape Town International Convention Centre on July 29. The team strolls in with the ease born of years perfecting their craft. They set up their computers, log in, huddle, and put on their headphones. Once the headphones are on, says Hadjipaschali, they won’t see anything but the screen.
With a crowd of almost a hundred cheering them on, it takes two hours to win their quarterfinal against a team called Energy. The players get up, shake hands and then make their way back to their hotel for some rest.
Hadjipaschali isn’t the only professional gamer in his family. His older brother Andreas, who founded Bravado, also had his shot. Now the team’s manager and coach, Andreas is even more determined to see South African gamers on the international scene.
“You only have one or two options, to make do with what qualifiers we have got [in South Africa] or we go overseas and we try qualify over there, but it gets really expensive. To go overseas, for five days with five players with accommodation, food, drinks we spent easily over R150-R170,000 (around $12,000). It’s different if you are living in Europe and there are qualifiers there all the time.”
Although the industry is booming, it’s not easy for the players of Bravado to play professionally. The team practises online every night. This is to accommodate players like 17-year-old Aran Groesbeek, who is still in school. His parents will allow him to play only once he has finished his homework. Ashton Muller, 24 years old, works part time as a manager at his father’s construction company. He dropped out of university to focus on gaming.
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Robby da Loca spent a year in Sweden, the mecca of CS GO, trying to make it. But, with the high cost of living in Europe and having to work part time, he fell short and returned to South Africa. Da Loca is so captivated that when he first started playing, he would sneak onto his brother’s computer to play with his earphones off, so he could hear if his brother came home.
The final member is Ruan van Wyk, a qualified industrial engineer living in Port Elizabeth.
In Cape Town, the competition moves on to its final day. The atmosphere is intense as Bravado huddle before their semifinal. The auditorium is packed with fans. Shoutcasters blast their commentary. Behind the players is a giant screen, where the action is shown. Thousands more watch online. Bravado scores a crushing victory to get to the final.
South Africa has drawn the attention from teams around the world. One of those is Anthony Nell, manager of the South African branch of international brand Flipsid3 Tactics.
“What [Flipsid3 Tactics] are interested in is the player development in South Africa. They are looking for good players that are from parts of the world untapped by the rest of the world,” says Nell.
If you thought that gamers couldn’t earn a salary you would be wrong. Nell says even basic salaries for a player in a reserve league and lower would be around $5,000 a month, excluding prize money and endorsements.
The most lucrative eSports game is Defense of the Ancients 2 (DOTA 2). It attracts total prize pools of $86.7 million. At The International 4 in August, the crowdfunded prizes locked at $20.7 million and the winners, Wings Gaming, from China, walked away with $9.1 million for a week’s work.
Africa might not have as much cash to spare, but the pressure in Cape Town’s final is intense. Hadjipaschali and his team win a contested first set against their rivals, Carbon eSports, from Cape Town, who are playing at home.
Bravado suffers from nerves in the second set, throwing away an eight-point lead as Carbon force a decider. Ten minutes before the crucial final round that will make or break this team, Hadjipaschali gathers outside for a pep talk.
“Play calm and play smart,” he says.
The talk pays off and Bravado wins the final round clinically. The team leaps from their chairs shouting. The elation on their faces is priceless. It’s not the Olympics, nor the World Cup; but for these players it’s just as important. Hadjipaschali is so overwhelmed he cries.
“This is unreal. It may not seem like a lot to people, but this is what most of us do full time,” he says.
Ahead of Hadjipaschali and his team lies Paris and a possible $75,000, and that’s just the start.
How many more young men and women from Africa are going to go out on the international stages in search of millions, earning a living in a way their parents would surely fail to understand. Check your kids in the bedroom.

Tag: Games

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