London 2012: Ndanusa optimistic despite rising pessimism
Nigeria is expected to make her 15th appearance at the quadrennial sports gathering, and hopefully improve on her 23 medals haul since Helsinki 1952. Nigeria’s journey to the world biggest sports event would commence on Monday when President Goodluck Jonathan would hand over all Nigerian athletes billed for the Games to the Nigeria Olympic Committee […]
Nigeria is expected to make her 15th appearance at the quadrennial sports gathering, and hopefully improve on her 23 medals haul since Helsinki 1952.
Nigeria’s journey to the world biggest sports event would commence on Monday when President Goodluck Jonathan would hand over all Nigerian athletes billed for the Games to the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) in a colourful ceremony to be held in Abuja.
Based on the performance of Nigerian athletes at the just concluded Olympics trials in Calabar, most Nigerians have said that Team Nigeria’s participation at the games would just be to make the numbers.
For example, they argue that the time returned at the trials by athletes in the sprints, Nigeria’s stronghold is a far distance from what is being posted by the Jamaicans and Americans; a clear indication that Nigeria will achieve nothing in the sprints.
But the man at the head of the Nigerian contingent to the games, Engineer Sani Ndanusa argues differently. He says Team Nigeria has the potentials of winning a good number of medals in London, specifically in the taekwondo and sprints events.
He commended the leadership of Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) for ensuring that Nigerian athletes participate in all the major athletics events across the globe as part of preparations for the games.
According to him, the participation of Nigerian athletes to such events arranged by the federation, the National Sports Commission and the Nigeria Olympic Games have put them in vantage position to mount the podium at the London Games.
“I must congratulate the leadership of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) for being very proactive this time around, by attending most of the major tournaments in the world which has been part of our preparations.
“Definitely, I want to say we are going to present a new face of athletes at the London Olympic Games in both track and field, because both the preparation we have put in place and the hard work of the National Sports Commission (NSC).
“As professionals, we know that the 100 meters has been allocated to the Jamaicans, but of course in the relays for male and female we are very strong there, and of course the high jump and long jump we are working very hard there to get something substantial”, the former sports minister stated.
On the number of medals to be won by Team Nigeria, he said “we are going to win. For those that are going to participate; surely we will be in the medals zone. Projecting medals will not be important but we will be in the gold medal zone.
“ Right now, our athletes are in three different locations across the globe training on high level training centres, after which they will all converge at the Training Centre in Surrey in London where again they will have a period of two weeks to train on high quality facilities before finally moving into the Games Village on July 18.
“In fact, this time around training has been very systematic, and I want to say that with what we have put on ground and what the National Sports Commission has put on ground, we will come out clean and top”, said Ndanusa.
Interestingly, the perennial problem of inadequate funds will not be an issue this time as the Federal Government has since released funds for the event, in addition to sponsorship from the private sector and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to prepare athletes for the biggest sports gathering in the world.
Ndanusa said: “Government is largely funding the games, no doubt about it but of course we have some support from the private sector and another support coming from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in preparing some athletes that we feel they have the potentials after the Commonwealth Games, and since one year we have been supporting them. We also have some private sectors that have come to support by providing incentives”.