By Uzor Odigbo
Nigeria’s foremost legendary Marathon runner, Abbas Muhammad has said Nigeria’s failure to win medals at Paris Olympics Games was due to inexperienced sports administrators managing the sector.
Mohammed said inexperience, lack of proper exposure and inconsistent training of sports officials from the top, middle and ground zero made it difficult for them to imbibe the latest sports techniques and transfer such to their athletes.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Minister, federation chairman, high ranked sports officer or anything, once you can’t interpret a simple workable topic in sports management, winning medals at the olympics would be tough.”
The retired Army Col. said the way stadium and sports facilities are decaying in Nigeria without maintenance, that’s also the way coaches and sports technocrats are lacking experience in latest coaching techniques and administrative know-how.
“I’m shocked that people are lamenting that Nigeria returned from the Olympics with Zero medal and I ask, how many sports infrastructures the Sports Minister rehabilitated since one year in office, how many coaches were sent on courses? The athletes did not receive their training grants until the Olympics started. If you are distributing the Olympics Medals, would you give Nigeria?”
Abass Muhammad who holds a national record in both mini and long marathon, added: “If Nigeria must mitigate Olympic failures in future, the Sports Minister must concentrate on sports infrastructure development.”
He added that Delta State should be an example of how sports infrastructures should be developed and maintained.
“Funds should be provided yearly for training and competitions for all sports. Another solution is that once a talent is identified, the athlete should be attached to a competent coach home or abroad for proper handling. Jamaicans and other countries do have such programmes with United States of America and you can see how they Excel effortlessly,” he said.