By Uzor Odigbo
Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) technical director, Samuel Onikeku has assured that Nigeria will present a formidable team that can deliver medals at African Games billed for March 8-24 in Accra, Ghana.
According to him, the 2-day competition held at the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja saw a good number of athletes posting personal best performances.
According to Onikeku, after the national trials between February 16-17, the camping for the African Games will begin and by then the athletes selected will be ready to make the country proud.
“We are so impressed with the performances of the athletes in two days of competition,” said Onikeku.
“We seen over 70m in men’s javelin, in men and women 400m we’ve seen 46 and 52 respectively, in 1500m we have a 3.51.sec
“After the selection trials and the camping, we would have the team 100 percent ready and coupled with 10 days of resting and regeneration by the time we get to Accra our athletes will be fully ready and we are hoping for podium performances.”
Also speaking, AFN secretary-general Rita Mosindi, noted that despite the migration of a good number of Nigeria athletes to the USA this season, performances posted at the Abuja meet was a reassurance Nigeria’s talents pool has not been depleted.
“We had some of our best home based athletes getting full scholarships and moving to the US these past few month.
“But we are happy that the rest of the home based could be putting up these kinds of performances. We had record broken and seen personal bests.”
