Habu Gumel, President of the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC), has called on sports stakeholders to test-run Nigeria’s readiness for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, using the African Games and other outings for both qualification and awareness-creation.
Tony Nezianya, Public Relations Officer of the NOC, said Gumel made the call after several postponements of the 13th African Games which had finally been scheduled for between March 8 and March 23, 2024, in Accra, Ghana.
A statement issued by Nezianya in Awka on Friday, quoted the NOC President as saying that the Youth Winter Games, one of the events that will prepare Nigerian athletes, would be staged in Gangwom, South Korea, from Jan. 19 to Feb. 1, 2024.
At the moment, Nigeria has only qualified for eight events at the Olympics, as revealed by Gumel during a joint meeting of the NOC, the sports Federations and the Sports Ministry, headed by minister John Owan-Enoh.
According to Gumel, the Games will offer opportunities to qualify more athletes for the Paris, showpiece.
He said of the 29 sports on offer at the Accra Games, eight would be Olympic-qualifying while seven would be demonstration sports.
“It is hoped that Nigeria, which has performed well in past African Games, will use the opportunity to qualify more athletes for the Summer Games in Paris, a city famed as the citadel of love.
“As of today and heading into the Olympic year, 2024, our nation has only qualified for three in Athletics, three in boxing and one each in cycling and wrestling, ” noted the NOC boss.
”This is a far cry from expectations, even though we are still hopeful of qualifying more athletes, especially with our Women’s Basketball and Women’s Football teams still engaged in the qualifying series,” he said.
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Gumel, who is the only Nigerian in the International Olympic Committee, said some of Nigeria’s talented athletes and teams were missing out because they failed to take part in mandatory qualification events leading to the Olympic Games.
The NOC President appealed to the Minister of Sports to ensure that Nigeria took part in the African Games as well as other qualifying tournaments to improve the chances of the country’s strong presence at the Olympics.
He said Nigeria had maintained dominance in terms of haulage of medals at the African Games, and should be more determined to sustain its continental top rating.
According to him, “there is no doubt that we need to chart a new course by making a clear departure from the status quo in our drive for better results.
“Right now, the qualification system for both individual and team sports for the Paris Games is ongoing and as far as the Olympic Games are concerned, a critical take-off point is the qualification tournaments.
”The failure of any Federation, athlete or team to feature in one or more of the qualification tournaments lined up by the International Federations ahead of the Games, would mean automatic self-disqualification from the Olympic Games,” he said.
Also quoting Adewale Oladunjoye, president of Nigeria Triathlon Union (NTU), Nezianya said going for qualifiers would require massive funding.
Oladunjoye said though collaboration with the private sector was important, it must be noted that the private sector was facing fluctuating fortunes following foreign exchange and other operating challenges.