61 athletes to represent Nigeria at Tokyo 2020 Olympics, 22 at Paralympics

NIGERIA will be represented by 61 athletes at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the sports ministry has confirmed.

The team will depart in two batches for the Games that will start on 23 July, sports minister Sunday Dare said on Monday.

“The emergence of thecCOVID-19 pandemic in the first quarter of 2020 affected the organisational structures of both the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Dare said while addressing the plenary meeting with National Sports Federations for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium, Abuja.

“This consequently pushed International Federations to review their international sporting calendar and qualification pathway for athletes in their quest to participate at the Games.

“These challenges, no doubt, were difficult to overcome, but could not stop us as a great nation in ensuring that our athletes are strongly supported
and motivated to achieve this milestone.

“I must sincerely commend each and every one of you for your commitment and for standing together in this journey. “Specifically, I thank President Muhammadu Buhari for his immense support in approving and ensuring that funds were released to enable our athletes attend series of qualification tournaments.”

As at Monday, 61 Nigerian athletes have qualified for various events across nine sports for the Tokyo Olympics and 22 athletes in four sports for the Paralympic Games.

The breakdown for the Olympics shows athletics has 22, badminton three, basketball 24, canoe sprint one, gymnastics one, rowing one, taekwondo one, table tennis one and wrestling one.

Regarding the Paralympic Games,
para-athletics has five athletes, para-powerlifting 10, power rowing one, and para-table tennis six.

“The recent qualification of Nigeria for the women’s 4x100m, women’s
4x400m and 4x400m mixed relays was a significant achievement for the country, while still awaiting the World Athletics (WA) to ratify the slots in a few days,” Dare added.

The sports ministry in collaboration with the Nigerian Olympic Committee has scheduled a 14-day pre-Games training camp for the athletes in Kisarazu, Japan.

The ministry says the move is to further expose the athletes to adequate preparations ahead of their events as well as to give them ample time to adjust to the Japanese time zone.

It is also strategic to meet with COVID-19 regulations.

For the Olympic Games, the first batch of the athletes is scheduled to depart for Kisarazu on 6 July while the second batch departs on 13 July.

The Paralympic teams will depart in one batch on 8 August.