One of Nigeria’s sports legends, Abbas Mohammed, has described the recently concluded third combined CAA African U/18/U20 Athletics championships in Abeokuta, Ogun State, as the best organised and most successful events ever staged in the country.

For almost three decades, Mohammed’s national record of 2:16:06 seconds, which he set on September 11, 1990 at a full marathon race in Lagos, remains unbroken. Apart from dominating the national scene, Mohammed was able to stamp his authority at the international level, competing with world’s best marathoners at the Seoul ’88 Olympics Games, Rome ’95 World Military Games in Italy, as well as the 1997 Summer Universiade Games held in Italy’s famous city of Sicily.

Before then, Mohammed had participated in the great London Marathon in 1981 alongside another Nigerian runner, Great Ishaku, and the Los Angeles ’86 Marathon, where he competed alongside Umaru Bukaboni.

The marathon legend, who later became the Director of Sports, Nigerian Army in Borno State, was among past Nigerian sports heroes present at the MKO Abiola Sports Arena, Abeokuta, venue of the third combined CAA African U/18/U20 Athletics championships in Abeokuta. He told The Guardian that from organisational point of view, the championships would go down as the best ever staged on Nigeria’s soil.

“I have witnessed several championships organised in Nigeria, but I will rate this combined CAA U18/U20 championships as the best ever,” Mohammed said at the closing ceremony.

“As a former athlete, I do follow the build up to every athletics events in Africa and beyond. When Nigeria was accepted to host this event after Algeria failed to meet up, I thought it was going to be failure considering the short time and the present economic reality facing everyone. But to my surprise, the organisers did not only deliver, but exceeded my expectations. From feeding arrangement to accommodation at the Games Village, timely and smooth transportation of athletes to meet up their events, services rendered by the volunteer, wide publicity, security, cultural display on daily basis by the ceremonial committee and good work by the protocol officials at Lagos airport will remain a talking a point for all visiting athletes and officials. Nigerians must learn to do away with this idea of criticising everything once they are not part of it. It doesn’t pay; particularly in sports. I interacted with a majority of the visitors, and their response was good. I salute the organisers for a job well done and I also praise Ogun State government for accepting to host,” Abbas stated.

He urged Nigeria and other African countries to ensure all the athletes discovered at the championships are given the support they need to excel in the nearest future.

“Now that Nigeria has proven beyond doubt its ability of hosting a successful championship of this nature, what is left is to take good care of the athletes. My message also goes to all the countries because the future of Africa athletics starts from here,” he stated. African Athletics CEO, Lamine Fati, also commended members of the LOC and Nigerian government for their ‘excellent work.’

“The LOC surpassed our expectations, and we are grateful to Nigeria. Within two months, Nigeria was able to put together a championship we thought would not hold this year. We are satisfied with what we saw, and we can proudly tell people in Europe that we can also get things done, even better in Africa,” Fati stated.

For chairman of the LOC, Hon. Bukola Olapade, it was the zeal to promote grassroots athletics development that encouraged Nigeria to take up the challenge of hosting the championships.

“We are getting all these accolades because we had a group of dedicated people in the various committees that made it happen, Beside, we have a sports-loving President, His Excellency Ahmed Bola Tinubu, whose agenda is to put smile on faces of Nigerian youths at all time,” said Olopade, who is also the Director General of the National Sports Commission (NSC).

A record number of 43 countries participated in the championships.Some of the stars discovered at the event include Nigeria’s Lucy Nwankwo, who won the 200m gold, smashing her Personal Best by clocking a new PB of 24.07sec as a junior athlete. She narrowly missed the 100m gold medal.

Spectators were thrilled by the five star performance, particularly by Nigerian ladies, who won all the medals in the 100m and 200m (U18 category) and then the 400m and 200m (U20 categories).

Despite Nigeria’s inability to stop the defending champion, South Africa, on top the medals table, Chairman of the NSC, Mallam Shehu Dikko, was in cloud nine on the last day of the event. “We gave this championship the best approach, and I am satisfied with the outcome.”