Bronze medal winner in the para table tennis event at the recently ended Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Isau Ogunkunle, has said that his life has taken a turn for the better since he embraced the sport.
Ogunkunle, who defeated India’s Raj Alagar 3-1 (11-9, 4-11, 11-6, 11-8) in the men’s classes 3-5 of para table tennis event to make it to the podium at the 22nd edition of the games told sportsafricana.com that he cherished the medal, his first at international level.
The Tokyo 2020 Paralympian said: “Without table tennis, I don’t even know what I would have become. I don’t even know where I will be as only God knows that. But with table tennis, I have achieved a lot.
“Table tennis changed my life totally. It has corrected what was not properly aligned in my life. It has corrected a lot of things in my life. Apart from helping me to be healthy, it has also put food on my table and has given me the resources to cater for my family,” the former shoe cobbler said.
Ogunkunle described his Commonwealth bronze medal as “golden”, although he lamented missing out on the gold medal after losing the semifinal 0-3 (4-11, 11-13, 9-11) to eventual gold medalist, England’s Jack Hunter-Spivey.
Nevertheless, Ogunkunle said: “I thank Almighty God. This is my first Commonwealth Games and I won a medal. My determination was to win the gold medal but at least I won bronze. It is a medal, it is a ‘golden’ bronze and I thank God for that. I dedicate the medal to God, my coach and my golden mother, Mrs. Onikepo.”
Ogunkunle admitted that bagging the bronze medal was not without hassles: “The bronze medal looked easy because I had played with my opponent’s kind of rubber seven years ago and so his racket was not different from the one I had played against. But the result should not be used to assess the outcome of the match. It was not an easy match to win.”