What started as a simple attempt to try something new has transformed into an international sporting career for Nigeria wheelchair basketball captain Ijigbamigbe Gbemisola Olubisi, who has revealed how an unexpected introduction to sport in 2018 changed the direction of her life.
Ijigbamigbe said she had no elaborate sporting ambition when a teammate first introduced her to sport. Instead, she approached the opportunity with curiosity and decided to see where it would take her.
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“I was introduced to sports in 2018 by a teammate. I was like, ‘Let me just try it out,’ and it has been one loss and victory after the other,” she told Sports247.
That seemingly ordinary decision would eventually lead her through two different sports, a National Sports Festival medal and ultimately to the responsibility of captaining Nigeria in wheelchair basketball.
But basketball was not where she first made her mark.
With the National Sports Festival approaching in 2018, Ijigbamigbe was encouraged to consider swimming, with her height viewed as a potential advantage.
At the time, she was still relatively new to wheelchair basketball and faced the possibility of not immediately securing a place in the team for the festival.
Swimming suddenly presented another route.
Rather than reject a sport she had not originally planned to pursue, the Sociology graduate embraced the challenge and began preparing for the trials.
What happened next surprised even her.
“In one month, I started training, and I was able to beat the other athlete at the trials,” she recalled.
Within a remarkably short period, Ijigbamigbe had gone from learning the sport to earning the opportunity to compete at the National Sports Festival.
She did not stop there.
Ijigbamigbe went on to claim a bronze medal in swimming, providing an early indication of the competitive drive that would later become central to her wheelchair basketball career.
Despite her success in the pool, however, swimming never displaced the sport that had captured her heart.
Asked to choose between the two, there was no hesitation.
“Basketball,” she replied.
The reason goes beyond winning.
For Ijigbamigbe, wheelchair basketball provides an intensity and sense of collective responsibility that she finds difficult to replicate elsewhere.
