By Modupe Oremule
Lagos – Following the country’s poor performance in Athletics at the local and international levels this year, enthusiasts say there is need for sports authorities to focus more on developing youth and the junior athletes.
Some followers of events in athletics, who told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that 2016 was not a good one for Nigeria at competitions, said that youth and junior athletes were not given the needed encouragement.
Tony Osheku, a renowned athletics coach, said that nationally, the younger athletes who were the future of sports attended not more than one national competition in their category.
“Nationally, there were a couple of competitions but the youth had only one which is the D.K. Olukoya U-18 Athletics Championships; it is from the youth category that we can get future athletes.
“Most of the athletes discovered at the youth level are not encouraged or given the needed exposure.
“You cannot point to any youth or junior athlete that will move up to the senior cadre very soon because they are not given the chance,’’ he told NAN.
Osheku, also the Technical Director, Lagos State Athletics Association (LSAA), decried the little or no participation of Nigerian athletes at IAAF organised competitions, saying that “the pressure is telling on Okagbare’’.
“At the international level, I am disappointed; I stayed in Europe with some of my athletes then and when you talk about IAAF Grand Prix, you will see not less than 10 Nigerian athletes.
“Whether we like it or not, Blessing Okagbare is fading, the pressure is telling on her, and this brings us to where do we get the next set of athletes from?
“I am a stakeholder and I will be blunt, at the Rio Olympics, we didn’t do well and one major factor is because we are not paying attention to youths development,’’ the coach told NAN.
He added that a friend of his, who coaches overseas, told him that Nigeria was blessed with talents, yet has been unable to perform well in recent time.
Uruemu Adu of Lagos-based Esteem Athletics Club also decried the lack of support and nurture for most of the young athletes.
“2016 to me is not good for Nigeria in competitions. Locally, we are not doing well. For any sport to develop, identification, support and nurture must be considered.
“The Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) identifies, but after that the support and nurturing aspects dies. It isn’t enough to identify.
“By now, we should be working toward next year, the foundation is now. The youth are not being supported. It is not also about national camp,’’ he told NAN.
He said that over the years, the youth and juniors have been ignored, especially graduating into the senior categories.
“Over the years, youths have not been looked at, how are they supposed to keep going? Some of them are petering out because of lack of support.
“That is why many of them are going to represent other countries,’’ he said.
Isaac Ikhaobomeh, a Lagos-based athletics coach, said the year had been a bad one for athletics, especially in the senior category.
He, however, said that the youth and junior athletes tried at world levels in spite of little encouragement.
He added that for Nigeria to win any medal at Tokyo 2020 Olympics in Japan, the youth, junior and senior categories should be upgraded with preparation.
“Olympics is all about winning medals, and for Nigeria to achieve this feat, the preparation should start now. All the categories should be upgraded,’’ he said.
Stephen Soetan, a Hurdles and Vertical jumps coach, however, said the youth were given good attention with the consistent organisation of D.K. Olukoya Athletics Championships.
He added that the poor travelling arrangements for the World Youth Championships in Poland made the athletes to miss medals.
“The youth were given good attention with the consistent organisation of Olukoya athletics championships but bad administrative decisions led to poor exposure of these youngsters this year.
“Poor travelling arrangements further exposed the incompetence of these mediocre who were supposed to be in charge,’’ he said.
He told NAN that parents were likely to stop most of the best young athletes from focusing on their careers as athletes if proper development scheme wasn’t put in place soon.
Soetan said that athletics would continue to have poor results with the bad sports administrative structures on ground.
“We can only hope and pray that the right people take charge of affairs at the board of directors of AFN come April 2017,’’ he said.
Soetan, who is also an athletics statistician, said Nigeria had not done anything to deserve a medal this year, saying that nations prepare for eight years for Olympics.
He also decried the manner in which athletes and coaches were selected for competitions.
“We don’t have any working policies on how athletes and coaches are selected. We don’t have standard or performance level set for officials to ascertain their progress.
“Therefore, win or lose, mediocre officials will continue to direct our athletes toward mediocre performances. Officials are selected based on favouritism not on merit.
“The current statistics of athletes performances are not considered before taking decisions, and this should consulted,’’ he said.
NAN reports that the 2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Portland, Oregon in U.S. in March saw Nigeria not winning any medal.
Nigeria’s performance also dropped from the second position to the third at the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) Senior Championships in June in Durban, South Africa.
Nigeria won four gold, five silver and six bronze medals compared to what was recorded at Marrakech in 2014 where eight gold, nine silver and seven bronze medals were won.
Nigeria did not secure any medal at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World U-20 Championships in July in Poland.
Nigeria also did not win any medal in athletics at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
This leaves us with the question: What does 2017 hold for athletics in Nigeria? Only time will tell.