T/Tennis: State Coaches Tasked On Talent Discovery

The Head Coach, Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF), Nasiru Bello, has called on state coaches to assist the federation in the area of discovering talents at the grassroots.

Bello told newsmen in Lagos that since it was mandatory for coaches to discover talents in their areas, they should collaborate in the discovery of new talents for the federation.

“This is the only way to develop the sport. The federation does not have eyes in all the nooks and crannies of the federation.

“It is the coaches that are in the various states. They know who is who in Table Tennis in their localities, for the federation to groom to stardom,” he said.

According to him, there will be minimal reliance on ageing and tired players if talented players were discovered at the grassroots and were forwarded to the federation, on a regular basis.

“The ageing players’ skills are already known by their foreign counterparts but with newly-discovered ones, it will be difficult to predict them for a while.

“I hereby appeal to these coaches to assist us because as time lapses, most of the old players will not be able to withstand the rigour of the sport,” he said.

Bello noted that some of the upcoming players like Tosin Oribamise, Hammed Osibanjo and Babatunde Babafemi, were players that would soon become a threat to their foreign counterparts, because of their skills.

“Most of the players we have taken for international competitions this year are mostly the upcoming players, especially in the cadet category and they have been doing this country proud.

“Oribamise won the ITTF Hope Scholarship last February in Cote d’Ivoire, while she and Babafemi had been selected to represent Africa at the World Cadet Championships, slated for Turkey in June,” he said.

Bello said that quality and young players were at the grassroots awaiting discovery and urged the state coaches to step up their hunting activities.

He added that the federation had various developmental programmes to nurture newly-discovered talents to stardom.