Relay teams eye medals in China
Steps towards building a formidable Team Nigeria ahead of the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles in USA may have started with the National Sports Commission (NSC) making good its promise to pay training grants of $20,000 each to some elite athletes.
The decision by the immediate past Sports Minister, John Enoh, to pay the athletes training grants in the middle of the Paris 2024 Olympics did not go down well with some stakeholders.
But on resumption of office, the leadership of the NSC vowed to take a different approach, and this led to the establishment of the Elite Development and Podium Board headed by Olympian, Yusuf Ali.
The Guardian learnt, yesterday, that a total of 78 Nigerian athletes across all major sporting federations have been penciled down to benefit from the training grants, with 38 of them coming from track and field.
A source close to the NSC’s board said in a telephone chat, yesterday, that so far, a sizeable number of the elite athletes have been paid $20,000 each as against the $10,000 that they got from past administrations.
“As we speak, the NSC has disbursed $20,000 each to the elite athletes, and they are so excited about it because this is the first time such money is getting to them. The elite athletes are in category A, B and C, and the money will get to all of them based on the category they belong.”
The official added: “Now, our attention is to present a formidable squad at the 2025 World Athletics Relays in China. We are preparing four relay teams, 4x100m relay (men and women), 4x100m relay mixed and 4x400m mixed. We decided to leave out the 4x400m relay squad because the World Relays in China clashes with the NCAA programmes in the U.S. and majority of our 400m runners are affected because no coach in America will release his/her top runners. They want to make use of them in their various school programmes. We are hopeful that the four relay teams we are preparing for China will do us proud.”
The 2025 World Athletics Relays will hold at the Guangdong Olympic Stadium in Guangzhou, China on May 10 and 11, four days before the zonal sports federations’ elections across Nigeria.
