NATIONAL Coach of the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF), Bello Nasiru, is optimistic in the abilities of Segun Toriola and Edem Effiong to qualify for the Rio 2016 Olympics at the Africa Top 16 Championship, which serves as a window to the games.

A total of 12 Rio 2016 slots, six females and six males have been allotted to Africa.
Already qualified for the games are Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri, Olufunke Oshinaike, Congo Brazzaville’s Jianan Wang, Han Xing, Egypt’s Assar brothers, Omar and Khalid, as well as Dina Meshref and Nadeen El-Dawlatly. They made it through their performances at last year’s African Games in Congo Brazzaville.

Speaking to The Guardian at the weekend, Nasiru, who explained how the Africa Table Tennis Federation (ATTF) arrived at the first stage selection, said: “In 2015 at the African Games in Congo Brazzaville winning a medal was an Olympics qualification ticket.
“At the Games, two of our players, Aruna Quadri and Funke Oshinaike qualified based on their placement at the Games. Now the remaining players will meet from February 16 to 18 in Sudan to fill the remaining slots for the Rio Olympics– two females and one male. But qualification will only come up immediately after the Africa Top 16 event from February 14 to 16.”

According to Nasiru: “There are two stages of events at the Khartoum tournaments. The first one will be the Africa Top 16, while the second stage will be the Rio Olympics qualification for the remaining three slots. And those that will take part in the Africa Top 16 will include Funke Oshinaike, Aruna Quadri, Segun Toriola and Edem Effiong.
“Immediately after the Africa Top 16, Toriola and Edem will wait behind to fight for the Rio Olympics tickets. However, both the African Games in Congo qualification and the qualification event coming up in Sudan are mainly for singles, doubles and mixed doubles for Rio 2016.”

He revealed that the team that will represent Africa at Rio 2016, that will be decided in Malaysia where African countries will take part in a world team championship that will also include Europe, Oceania, Africa and South Americans.