The Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) has appealed to the federal government for early release of adequate funds to aid Team Nigeria’s preparation for the fast approaching Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The secretary-general of NOC, Mr Tunde Popoola, made the passionate appeal while speaking to journalists in Abuja recently, saying early release of enough funds would enable the country to achieve the desired result at the Paris Games.
He said so far Team Nigeria’s preparations for the quadrennial summer Games are in top gear following a good collaboration between the NOC and the Ministry of Sports Development.
“NOC is in charge of the Olympics and the Ministry is their partner, unlike in the past when there used to be a discretionary kind of arrangement. This strong synergy between NOC and the Ministry has made a lot of things work better and our preparations for the Paris Games are in perfect order so far.
”For the athletes, they have done so well in the various international meets, breaking and creating records; the only thing we need to do now is to sustain it through positive media reports.
“So, we are appealing to the federal government to ensure release of funds to the Ministry and to enable us to achieve desired results in Paris,’ Popoola said.
According to him, the NOC’s strategic effort is targeting athletics, wrestling, weightlifting and badminton to break the 32 years gold medal jinx that continued elusive Nigeria.
“Our strength is in athletics, wrestling and weightlifting. We also have hope for a podium finish in badminton,” Popoola added.
Nigeria’s last Olympics gold medal was won at the Sydney 2000 Games where the nation’s 4x400m men’s team won a silver which was later converted gold by the IOC after the disqualification of the U.S. team for fielding a drug offender in the final race.
Since then, the country has not repeated the feat they first achieved at the Atlanta 1996 Games when Chioma Ajunwa and the men’s football team gave the country two gold medals.
