Sports
Olympian Advises Against Sentiment In Sports
Athletes showing off skills in one of the national traditional sports at a recent tournament
A 2004 Olympic Bronze
medalist, Deji Aliu, has advised sports administrators not to mix politics with sports.
Aliu told newsmen in Lagos that mixing sports and politics would affect sports development.
The Olympian, who spoke after organising his talent hunt audition, tagged ‘’the Making of Champions’’ said that sentiments should be discarded when conducting trials.
“We are very sentimental in this part of the world.
“But for me, being an athlete, I have been there, I have seen it all, I will always celebrate talents. I do not want to know where you are coming from or who you are.
“When I saw a talent at the Lagos audition, who I heard competed at the IBILE Games but was not picked, I knew he will be great, he has not really had training but if trained well, he will be big in the world.”
Aliu, who was also a 100m gold medalist at the 1994 World Junior Championships in Portugal, noted that talent in sports goes with time, “so real talents discovered should be given the opportunity.
“He is not my athlete; he is not going to be in the team, that notion is not fair; it is not fair to the state and the country.
“People who think like that should be sent out of the system.
“I will be a coward if I shy away from this issue because it has been going on for a while. They do not want the best athletes to be there, rather, they want their own athlete to be there.
“This is not helping the system because they feel they are not going to take the glory but then if you don’t take the glory as an individual, the country will take, so why don’t you look at it this way.
“We have a lot of talents in Nigeria but they are untapped and I thought let me do my quota by discovering and nurturing talents to Olympics standard,’’
He said that track and field was still the best sport, advising would-be athletes not to give up on their dreams, saying they should allow their speed and pace to work positively.
“Track and field is still the best sport even if somebody does not like your face, when your leg starts doing the talking, they won’t have any choice but to accept.
Aliu noted that those who discriminated against some athletes start running after the athletes when they see the athletes proving their mettle.
“When a talented athlete start raising up shoulders, they say he or she isn’t discipline, forgetting how they have rubbished the athlete in the past.
“When these talents start performing well, you see all these people running after then,” Aliu said.
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.
-
Politics21 hours agoAPC Releases Adjusted Timetable For Nationwide Congresses, Convention
-
Sports5 days agoArsenal Women End Man City’s Invincibility
-
Sports5 days agoU-20 WWC: Falconets claim qualifier win
-
Sports5 days agoInsurance Deepen Enyimba’s Trouble
-
Sports5 days agoYouth Olympics preparation Gears up
-
Sports5 days agoCologne Youth Team Set Crowd Record
-
Sports5 days agoTornadoes Set For NPFL exit over Stadium Ban
-
Sports5 days agoBarca Pull Out Of Super League Project