Rabat 2019: Why we cannot come top of the medals table- Dr Are

by The Ajasa News | August 20, 2019 8:56 am

By Martin Odiete

While President of the Nigeria Olympic Committee, Habu Gumel and even the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Olusade Adesola have expressed optimism that Team Nigeria will certainly come top of the medal table by the end of the 12th Africa Games in Rabat, Morocco Director of Grassroots Sports Development, Ministry of Youth and Sports, Dr Demola Are has cast deep doubt on that possibility.

Explaining reasons for his position, Are told www.theajasanews.com[1] that Nigeria inability to participate at major events that produces multi medals is part of the reasons for his argument.

He stated that Games like swimming, shooting and gymnastic are medal spinning events that most countries like Egypt, South Africa and other North Africans take advantage of to build their medal table, Nigeria will only be presenting very few Athletes or none at all in some of the sports. He maintained that it is absolutely impossible to come top of the medal table of the Games if you do not participating at such events.

The Sports Ministry Director also stressed that the removal of the para events from the Games was also another setback that hit the Nigeria contingent chances of coming top of the medal table.

“As Nigerian and to be very realistic we cannot come first in the medal table with the way things are, looking at the sports in which the North Africans and South Africans have advantage over us like shooting, swimming, gymnastics, where we have multi-medal opportunities. Nigeria is not very proficient in those sports. But we can look forward to doing our utmost best at least to be on 4th to 5th on medals table of these sports.”

Meanwhile, Dr Are expressed optimism that Team Nigeria will put up a good show in the events they would be participating arguing that the Athletes have been adequately prepared to put up a good fight in the Games.

“Though, we have not been able to win any medal even with Judo event coming to an end, however, we are still looking forward tour participation at the other events where we have advantage and we will start winning medals as soon as possible,” he said.

Source URL: https://theajasanews.com/rabat-2019-why-we-cannot-come-top-of-the-medal-table-dr-are/

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