Sports
Brazil 2016: Nigeria To Groom ECOWAS Games’ Athletes
The National Sports Commission (NSC) will focus on grooming its athletes who perform well at the on-going ECOWAS Games, for the 2016 Olympic Games, Sports Minister Bolaji Abdullahi has said.
Abdullahi, who made the promise early in the week while addressing Nigerian athletes at the Games holding in Accra, Ghana, said he was impressed by their performances.
Nigeria is taking part in the second edition of the Games, which began last weekend and will end today.
Already, the Nigerian contingent of 43 athletes and 30 officials had as at Monday evening won 10 gold, eight silver and three bronze medals to upstage hosts Ghana that initially topped the medals table.
“We believe that even if you can’t be part of the athletes that will compete for Nigeria in London at the Summer Olympic Games in July, we can begin to hope that at the next Olympic Games in Brazil in 2016, champions will emerge from amongst you here,’’ Abdullahi said.
The minister, who is also the NSC Chairman, said the commission was going to take note of all the athletes who competed in Ghana and give them motivational support.
“We are going to continue to support you, and continue to give you all the necessary exposure,” he said.
Abdullahi, who arrived at the Games on Monday, also said he was going to inform President Goodluck Jonathan of the athletes’ performances for appropriate reward.
“For now, we are very proud of what we have achieved and I will convey this to Mr President; and I can assure you that you will be adequately rewarded at the appropriate time,’’ he said.
The athletes won the six gold, three silver and one bronze medals in track and field events at the El-Wak Stadium in the presence of the minister.
Team Nigeria had trailed the hosts from Day One last Saturday, and had slipped further down on Monday morning when it lost out in the team event of traditional wrestling.
But a scintillating performance later in the day in athletics events helped Nigeria to move to the summit of the medals table.
The minister urged the athletes to do more to ensure that the country led the medals table at the end of the Games.
“I am very excited to see the performances that most of you posted since I got here and I can tell you that Nigeria is indeed the leader in West Africa.
“You have to maintain the tempo till the end of the game, as the country will settle for nothing less than winning the Games.
“This is the West African Games, and there shouldn’t be any doubt about who the leader in West Africa should be,’’ he said.
Abdullahi also pledged his support for the growth of athletics, saying that “he is not a minister of Football but a minister of sports’’.
The Sports Writers Association of Nigeria ( SWAN) Rivers State Chapter has set up five standing working committees on Tuesday, in its general congress.
At the playoff held at the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, Onikan, the team of Canice Abua, Michael Emmanuel, Daniel Adeleye, and Abubakar Yusuf was majestic as they restored Nigeria’s hope in a sport that once gave the country so much joy.
Speaking after the final game, Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF) President, Victor Ochei, said the Davis Cup feat is the stepping stone to better days in the sport, adding that the federation has set up programmes that will help the budding talents across the country play at the same level as their counterparts in other tennis-developed countries.
Ochei said: “The whole aim of having this new board is to lift the sport to the level we used to be. I tell you, tennis is taking a new shape in Nigeria. We are putting everything and anything to make that work happen.”
Ochei said that the NTF has looked at sponsorships and how to get the emerging players compete at the same level with their peers elsewhere, adding that the federation is working on organising local competitions and helping the players to compete in international championships.
“We believe that with what we are doing now, sponsors will come to us to organise new competitions. But beyond that, there’s a strategic growth development plan, a 10-year development plan, which the board is working on.
“The programme will ensure that we catch them young. This is because we believe that to create champions, we must start grooming them early. The champions you are seeing today were those groomed yesterday.”
“The process of building new champions will include building the coaches, the players, the infrastructure and sensitising the parents so that we can start catching them as young as age five to six.
“By the time that we groom them through 10 years of training, at age 15, 16, you will see fantastic professional players.”
To achieve the federation’s plans, Ochei admits that the NTF needs a lot of investment, adding that the board is working at realising the funds quietly and tenaciously.
The NTF president acknowledged the contributions of former international stars like Nduka Odizor and Sadiq Abdullahi to the bid to rejuvenate Nigerian tennis, adding that NTF is open to collaborating with former players who know what it takes to play at the highest level of the sport.
He said, “Nduka Odizor is around as one of our VIP personalities. He has been psyching up the boys in the battle with Uzbekistan. He will not enter the court to play, but his mere presence is enough motivation to the boys, who will want to be like him in the future.
“You see, the type of support the Odizors, the Imonities and the Abdullahis got in their time is no longer there, but we are revamping it with the support of our stakeholders in the Diaspora.
“It will appear to take us some time, but I can tell you that the Diaspora support is massive.”
In its bid to get good results in this year’s Commonwealth Games, the National Sports Commission (NSC) has disbursed N200 million as training grants to 26 athletes.
The 2026 Commonwealth Games will be held in Glasgow, Scotland.
The NSC stated that the grants were disbursed through its Elite and Podium Board, noting that N200 million was allocated to select top-performing athletes.
The beneficiaries are both foreign-based and home-based, the NSC said, adding that it will cater for their training and preparation expenses.
According to the NSC, the recipients span several sports, including athletics, wrestling, weightlifting, and para-sports, in line with the Commission’s mandate to prioritise athletes’ welfare and high-performance development.
The Commission added that the disbursement follows the establishment of the Elite and Podium Board, created to implement a scientific and institutionalised support system aimed at sustaining peak performances by Nigerian athletes at major international competitions.
NSC Director General, Bukola Olopade, said the Commission, under the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was established to restore confidence and provide renewed hope for Nigerian sportsmen and women by placing strong emphasis on athlete welfare.
“The training grants disbursed to 26 athletes across different sports followed a careful and professional selection process by the Yusuf Ali-led Elite and Podium Board. This is our way of reassuring our athletes that their welfare remains our utmost priority,” he said.
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