Earlier during the week, CNN’s ‘African Voices’ reports from Nigeria, featured former polo player Neku Atawodi.
She is the first black polo player in Lagos, Atawodi.
During the interview, she reflects on her career and reveals some of the initiatives she’s implementing to grow the sport in West Africa today.
‘African Voices’ hears from Atawodi how she began riding at nine years old: “Everyone was like, ‘You shouldn't cause you're a girl’ and I just went ahead and did it. Then when I was about 13 I told my uncle, ‘Can I play this professionally?’ and he said ‘Absolutely not’. When I went to school in England I just grew wings and did it anyway.”
She studied all genres of horse riding, including dressage and show jumping. Atawodi is also a qualified professional equestrian scientist, but the move into playing professionally.
Atawodi says the programme some of the difficulties she faced: “Most of the challenges, oddly, were from my family… I think that's just when people love you they care about you and they want to know that you're making the right choices, and I was really young when I decided that I wanted to play polo. I've never really been one to care about what other people think, but I really do care about what my family think and making them proud.”
Atawodi found success, and she was able to tour the world.
Speaking on when she realised she could live off her polo career, Atawodi tells ‘African Voices’: “I definitely did not realise that till probably I was playing in New York, and I got put on the cover of an equestrian magazine, and then people started calling and giving me offers to play for their teams… But I was already working in polo, because I studied equestrian science, so I never really thought about what else I could do or if I could make a living or not. It was just doing what I love.”
Since her retirement, Atawodi has sought to make her achievement less rare by establishing arena polo events in West Africa and bringing the sport to television.
On the future of initiatives and reflecting on the impact of her career in Nigeria, Atawodi said: “I would love to bring the sport that I'm so passionate about more to the masses - people should identify more with polo, like they do with football… We work with kids also and I've got a charity called ‘Right to Shine’ and we teach African orphans to ride and play polo. So that's also just showing that anybody can play polo.”
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