On the afternoon of August 7, Beijing time, the Italian women's volleyball team received Egnu to release a dynamic and announced the news of her father's death.
Egnu posted a photo of my father with the caption: My hometown, my family, my culture, Dad, you will always remain in our hearts, August 6, 2021.
Soon, the official social account of the FIVB also confirmed the news and expressed condolences to Egnu and his family.
Paula Egnu's father, Ambrose Egnu, was Nigerian. Because of his African ancestry, which represents diversity and his strong presence on the field, Egnu was chosen as the Olympic five-ring flag bearer at the opening ceremony of the Games.
However, Egnu's Italian women's volleyball team failed to meet expectations. After the group stage lost 0-3 to Zhu Ting, Yan Ni and Ding Xia to rest the Chinese women's volleyball team, the Italian women's volleyball team lost 0-3 to the Serbian women's volleyball team in the 1/4 final.
After 6 games, Egnu had a success rate of 44.7% in the 246 deductions and 110 deductions in the best offensive link, but due to a large number of mistakes, the efficiency was only 20.7%, which was not only a big gap from the 35.1% of Boskovic, another representative of the strong receiver, but also not as good as the main attacks of the strong teams such as Jin Softjing, Gabi and Larson.
Previously, it was widely believed that the rhythm of the main second pass Malinov was the main reason for Egnu's dysfunctional performance at the Olympic Games. And after Egnu announced the sad news of his father's death, there may be a deeper reason for Egnu and Italy's poor performance. I hope that Egnu will mourn and come out of grief as soon as possible.