• Nigeria Must Avoid Past Mistakes, Says Okorie
Nigeria’s hope of securing 4x400m relay tickets early for the 2023 World Athletics Championship in Budapest, Hungary, could not materialise in the United States, last weekend.
Nigeria paraded both male and female squad to the event held at the Louisiana State University, with the hope of picking relay qualification ticket to Budapest, but things didn’t work out.
While the female team, made up of Patience Okon-George, Knowledge Omovoh, Jessica Ozoude, Imaobong Nse Uko and Brittany Ogunmokun could not run at the event due to what an AFN official termed as ‘terrible weather condition,’ the male team, comprising of Samson Nathaniel, Ezekiel Nathaniel, Sikiru Adeyemi and Chidi Okozie insisted on trying their best, but ended up finishing outside the qualification zone.
The Nigerians, who ran with Team Canada and some top universities at the event, finished in 3.05.417seconds, far from the qualification time of 3.02.00secs expected from them.
AFN Secretary General, Rita Mosindi, led the team to the United States.
With the unsuccessful attempt in Louisiana, the Performance Director of the AFN, U.S.-based AFN board member, Victor Okorie, says Nigeria’s quest to secure relay tickets to Budapest 2023 should be pursued in a different way.
“I want Team Nigeria to take a different approach as far as the battle to secure relay tickets to the World Championship in Budapest is concerned,” he told The Guardian.
Okorie, who led Team Nigeria to a successful outing at Oregon 2022 World Championship, where the duo of Tobi Amusan and Ese Brume won gold and silver medal respectively, stated that opening a camp in the U.S. would ensure quicker relay qualification and also save the country money.
“The NCAA Championships in America will end on June 10, and I want the AFN to open relay camp here immediately. I appeal to the Sports Ministry to make funds available for the AFN to put the relay camp together. I believe we will qualify in all the relays here in the United States before our National Trials scheduled to hold in the first week of July in Uyo, Akwa Ibom.”
Speaking further, Okorie, who grabbed a 400m hurdles silver medal for Team Nigeria at COJA 2003 All African Games in Abuja, and was also part of the squad to Paris 2003 World Athletics Championship said: “It will be easier to put a solid relay squad together here in the U.S. and achieve results than go through the rigorous exercise of last year, where Nigeria had to invite different countries to Lagos for the relay qualification. We have the athletes who are capable of getting the relay tickets here, and I don’t want Nigeria to waste money unnecessarily.”
