Nigerian canoeist, Jonathan Akinyemi was the first Nigerin athlete to arrive in Rio, Brazil ahead of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games which began in the Brazilian City of Rio on August 5. GO FOR GOLD: Jonathan Akinyemi competing in Kayak at the 2012 London Olympics. Akinyemi is ready to compete in Rio Games.GO FOR GOLD: Jonathan Akinyemi competing in Kayak at the 2012 London Olympics. Akinyemi is ready to compete in Rio Games. Akinyemi, who will represent Nigeria at the Olympics for the second successive time in the canoe/slalom kayak event at the Rio 2016 Olympics, arrived Brazil on Tuesday, ahead of the rest members of Team Nigeria. He was received at the Games Village by officials of Team Nigeria. ‘’He immediately got down to work and has not slowed down since he hit Rio’’, an excited official of Nigeria Olympic Committee said. Born in England, Jonathan Akinyemi is the first Nigerian to compete in the canoeing event of the Olympic Games. He qualified as Nigeria’s only canoeist to Rio 2016 in the men’s K-1 class by obtaining a top finish at the 2015 African Canoe Slalom Championships in Sagana, Kenya which makes him a medal hopeful at the Rio Games.

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Sadly he has crashed out of medal reckoning.