Director-general of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Hon. Gbenga Elegbeleye, has risen in defence of Team Nigeria that performed woefully at just concluded IAAF World Indoor Championships held in Sopot, Poland.
Reacting to the development in Abuja, Elegbeleye stated that the 12 athletes who were taken to the competition went to gather experience as no foreign-based professional athletes were invited.
He said: “I think we need to understand the rationale behind Nigeria’s participation in the championship. We only took home-based athletes to represent the country in order to get them exposed for future engagements.”
For the third consecutive edition, Team Nigeria failed to put up impressive performance in the 15th edition of the championship which ended last weekend.
At the 60m final, medal hopeful, Gloria Asumnu, crashed Nigeria’s final hope of a podium appearance when she finished seventh, one step lower her sixth place finish two years ago in Istanbul, Turkey, at the 14th edition of the championship.
The reigning African 200m queen had raised hopes of a possible upset when in the semi-final when she ran 7.11 seconds to place second behind Cote D’Ivoire’s Muriel Ahoure (7.06).She was, however, blown away by the strong contenders which included double sprints champions at the IAAF World outdoor Championships in Moscow, Russia, last year, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pyrce who won the title in 6.98 seconds and Ahoure who came second.
The men’s 4x400m relay team also failed to make it beyond the first round despite running a new 3: 07.95 African indoor record.
The last time Nigeria made it to the podium was at the 12th edition in Valencia, Spain, where Olusoji Fasuba made history as the first African sprinter to win the 60m gold. Fasuba has since abandoned Nigeria to take British citizenship in protest against poor motivation.
