Nigeria’s grassroots programme not good to raise world-beaters – Gora
A retired sports administrator, Elias Gora, yesterday said the country’s grassroots development programme was not good enough to help build world-beaters and return Nigeria to winning ways.
Gora said in an interview in Lagos that there should have by now been a replacement for sprinter Blessing Okagbare if the programme was yielding the desired result.
Speaking against the background of recent unimpressive performances by Okagbare, Gora lamented that Nigeria’s athletics administrators had been paying lip service to grassroots development and this was rather unfortunate.
“I said this same thing sometime last year, and up till this moment there is nobody we can pinpoint or point at as a possible replacement for this talented athlete that nature has begun to take its course on.
“In Nigerian athletics unfortunately, there is a talk of `catch them young’ grassroots development. But I haven’t seen anything in that direction.
“If that was the case and we are quite serious with it, we would have had young and talented athletes replacing Okagbare,” he said.
Okagbare, one of Africa’s most successful sprinters, will not be in action when the IAAF Diamond League makes its second of 14 stops this weekend in Shanghai, China.
She finished with an uninspiring 23.15 seconds to place sixth in the opening leg of the money-spinning one day meeting last weekend in Doha, Qatar.
This would be the second straight season the Nigerian 100m record holder at 10.79 seconds will be missing the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Shanghai.
She had made her debut in 2011, coming third in 11.23 seconds in the 100m.
Gora, who was Nigeria’s Chef de Mission at the 2011 New Delhi Commonwealth Games,
“By now, there should be a replacement for Okagbare already if the grassroots development programme was yielding the desired result.
“She’s a wonderful woman, well determined and her passion for this country is highly commendable, but by now somebody would have replaced her.
“We should by now not only have one, but very many other new crop of young athletes coming up to do Nigeria proud.
“So, I don’t know what we are really doing in grassroots sports development,” he said.
Gora lamented that what the country was having was a situation of having individual athletes attending competitions without training.
“They cannot embark on any serious training because first they don’t have a coach, and that’s the truth, as sad as it is. We can’t take good coaching away from sports,” he said.
