D’Tigress’ Rena Wakama has won the best coach at the women’s basketball event in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Wakama who hails from Okrika, Rivers State is also the first Nigerian National Female Basketball Team coach to win the women’s Afrobasket title since it began in 1966.
She took the Nigerian female team to the quarter-finals of the tournament t for the first time in its history.
That feat made them the first-ever African team (men or women) to play at that stage of the event.
Nigeria would eventually bow out of the women’s basketball event losing 74-88 to the US
🧠 Best coach of #Paris2024 Women’s Basketball
Rene Wakama, Nigeria 🇳🇬 pic.twitter.com/iAe0eh4Rso
— FIBA (@FIBA) August 11, 2024
“Best coach of #Paris2024 Women’s Basketball, Rene Wakama, Nigeria,” a tweet on the X handle of the International Basketball Federation read on Sunday evening.
Also, joining the 32-year-old Wakama was D’Tigress’ point guard, Ezinne Kalu, who was included as one of the All-Second Team of the Olympics Women’s Basketball.
All-Second Team of #Paris2024 Women’s #Basketball
🔹 Ezinne Kalu, Nigeria 🇳🇬
🔹 Julie Vanloo, Belgium 🇧🇪
🔹 Satou Sabally, Germany 🇩🇪
🔹 Valeriane Ayayi, France 🇫🇷
🔹 Ezi Magbegor, Australia 🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/hgAK1zY1BB
— FIBA (@FIBA) August 11, 2024
In 2023, she became the first female Head Coach of D’Tigress. Before that she served as the director of women’s basketball operations, she became an assistant coach in her third year where she kept on developing talents while serving as the team’s academics and community service liaison.