Sports
Long Jumper Wants Nigerian Athletes Well Motivated
Yusuf Ali, the 1990 former Commonwealth Long Jump Champion, wants the nation’s leaders to ensure that Nigerian athletes are properly motivated for the London Olympic Games, justless them100 days away.
Ali, who holds the African record in the long jump, spoke with newsmen in Lagos last week.
According to him, there is the need to motivate the athletes for better performance by paying them their training grants.
“Their allowances and training grants should be given to them, to serve as a form of motivation,’’ he said.
Ali urged the National Sports Commission (NSC) to ensure that the Chairman of the Athletic Federation of Nigeria (Chief Solomon Ogba), was promptly reimbursed moneys he had spent on the track and field team.
“He (Ogba) took the athletes to camp in the US and has been responsible for their upkeep.
“I hope he will be reimbursed when funds are eventually released by NSC,’’ Ali said.
Assessing the level of preparedness of the country’s athletes for the Olympics, he said that they had bright prospects of winning medals at the Olympics.
“Judging by the performance of athletes at the Golden League competition, and the reports I have from the U.S. camp, I think we can get four to five medals at the Olympics.
“The fact that the team commenced closed camping in the U.S. about two months ago has not dimmed its chances of doing well at the Games.
“The athletes have been training rigorously and they all know what is at stake at the global sports fiesta,’’ Ali said.
The 2012 Olympic Games comes up from July 27 to August 13, 64 years after London hosted the Games for the second time. It hosted the Olympics for the first time in 1908.
Iwobi spoke to Tidesports source ahead of Nigeria’s crunch playoff semi-final against Gabon on Thursday, November 13, in Rabat, Morocco.
The 28-year-old was reacting to Nigeria’s shaky World Cup qualifying campaign that saw the Eagles finish second in Group C behind South Africa’s Bafana Bafana.
“We’ve managed to rescue ourselves from the dead,” Iwobi told Tidesports source.
We know we have the players and the abilities to compete against any other country in the world.”
The Fulham star pointed to Nigeria’s star power, highlighting African Footballer of the Year winners Ademola Lookman and Victor Osimhen as proof of the squad’s quality.
“We have last year’s African best player (Ademola Lookman), the year before that (Victor Osimhen),” he said.
“It’ll be a shame if we don’t make it, but we have a lot of confidence. We just have to prove it to ourselves.”
Nigeria’s path to the United States, Canada and Mexico has been turbulent, with two coaches departing during the early stages of qualifying before Éric Chelle steadied the ship to steer the Super Eagles into November’s CAF playoffs.
Four nations from the continent – Nigeria, Cameroon, DR Congo and Gabon – will vie for a solitary spot to compete in next March’s inter-confederation playoffs, with a view to joining the already nine qualified African nations at the Finals.
It would mark Iwobi’s second appearance at the World Cup Finals and the Super Eagles’ first since the 2018 edition of the competition.
Back then, Iwobi featured in all three games as Nigeria was knocked out in the group stage.
The Chief Executive Officer(CEO) and Publisher of the Atlantic Bell Online medium, Mr. Celestine Ogolo has advised sports writers in Nigeria to diversify in sports writing and not to concentrate on football reporting alone.
The Deputy National President of Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) Mr. Bonny Nyong has expressed commitment to support sports development and move SWAN forward.