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By Abiodun Adewale
President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, Tonobok Okowa, says the country will prepare home-based athletes for the upcoming African Games in Ghana, in anticipation of the absence of some of the overseas-based athletes, PUNCH Sports Extra reports.
The 2023 African Games, the 13th edition, holds from March 8 to 23 across three Ghanaian cities — Accra, Kumasi and Cape Coast.
According to the Ministry of Sports Development, Team Nigeria’s contingent to the Games will open camp Thursday, February 15 in five states across the country with the athletics team scheduled to train at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium, Abuja.
Ahead of the camping activities, the AFN is uncertain about the availability of the athletes based abroad due to the timing of the indoor season abroad.
“We will go there and see what we can do. If most of our foreign-based athletes will not come, we will use our home-based athletes to participate in the competition. Our technical department is working hard. We will put some of the home-based athletes in camp,” Okowa told our correspondent.
“For the foreign-based, we will work with the sports ministry to see if they can give some training grants so that they can fly straight to Ghana.”
Nigeria’s leading athletes Tobi Amusan (100m hurdles), Ese Brume (long jump), Sade Olatoye (shot put), Chukwuebuka Enekwechi (shot put), who all won gold medals at the last edition in 2019, as well as Favour Ofili, who won silver in the 400m, are busy with the indoor season abroad, where they have made blistering starts.
Amusan has set the women’s 100m hurdles African record twice this year. She first ran 7.77s to win the Astana Indoor meet in Kazakhstan January 27, shattering Gloria Alozie’s longstanding continental mark of 7.82s set in 1999. A week later at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston, she lowered the record to 7.75s to place second behind Tia Jones.
Ofili, who is making her professional debut this season, set an African women’s indoor record in 300m by dipping 35.99s also at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston February 3.
At the 2019 Games, which took place between August 26 to 30 in Morocco, Nigeria finished top of the athletics events with 23 medals, including 10 gold, seven silver and six bronze.
Nigeria finished second in the overall medals table with a haul of 127 medals — 46 gold, 33 silver and 48 bronze.
