Sports
Official Wants Judo Coaches To Train Althletes
Executive member, Commonwealth Judo Association, Prof. Olakintan DeSouza, has urged Nigerian judo coaches to wake up to the responsibility of regular training of athletes, to raise the standard of the sports.
DeSouza spoke to newsmen in Lagos on the Nigeria Judo Federation’s (NJF) failure to discover enough talents at the just-concluded 18th National Sports Festival in Lagos.
“Coaches should be more conscious of their jobs if judo would ever reach its peak in the country.
“Sincerely, we cannot boast of promising young talents at the 18th National Sports Festival. I think we discovered one or two talents and not more than that,’’ he said.
According to him, the poor turnout of young talents at the festival was a reflection of the failure of the coaches in the discharge of their duties.
DeSouza lamented the inability of the federation to organise regular tournaments to develop the sport.
“It is a pity, we only had two national tournament this year, the second being the National Sports Festival, whereas our colleagues in other countries hold competitions every other week.
“In judo, we need techniques which must be practised constantly; repetitive training makes the techniques part of the athletes,’’ said the International Judo Federation (IJF) referee.
DeSouza, who is also a board member of the NJF, urged coaches to attend courses, workshops and seminars on the sport, to acquaint themselves with its current rules and techniques.
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.
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