A renowned athletics
coach, Tobias Igwe, has urged athletes invited for the All Africa Games (AAG) by the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) to step up their training for better performance.
The  AFN had on Monday named 34 female and 31 male athletes to its AAG camp at the University of Port Harcourt.
Igwe, who is among the coaches invited to the camp, told newsmen that the athletes should devote more time to training and ensure that they obey the instructions of their coaches.
“Formerly, we used to go to Mobil or the Senior Open from camp but nowadays, it is not like that. They need to train some more.
“The camp is for a short period, which is not good enough. I can remember the Atlanta Olympics, we were camped for nine months, for Barcelona, we camped for nine months.
“All those days, we used to have what we call long summer coaching before the big competitions like the Commonwealth Games. So they need to intensify training,’’ he said.
Igwe said that most of the male athletes needed to be monitored thoroughly, stressing that their female counterparts were more committed.
“In the male category, even in the female category, we do not really have outstanding athletes apart from Blessing Okagbare.
“Our 4x400m men that won gold at the Sydney Olympics were because America was disqualified because of drugs, but today, our men cannot boast of appearing in the finals at the Olympics.
“And Nigeria does not start sports very early, like at the age of eight, unlike those in the western world.
“So they use the summer coaching to get them to a level that they can begin to compete at the world stage,’’ he said.
Igwe, who coached the likes of Tina Iheagwam, a 1987 AAG 100m gold medallist, urged coaches in the hinterlands to put in more efforts to improve themselves, to be able to coach athletes to meet the international standards.