HIGH LEVEL ATHLETICS -Nigeria Gets Support For Improved Performance

Nigeria recently joined the rank of elite African countries that are blessed with edifices called high performance athletics center, as the global body for track and field, IAAF, took its latest developmental venture to Port Harcourt. SportsDay’s athletics guru, OKE OLUKU was their live and recounts catchy details and comments of the event in The Garden City ….
All hopes held by lovers of track and field in the country for improved levels of performances among Nigerian athletes in continental and global events recently received a boost, when International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) stormed the Rivers State capital, Port Harcourt to launch its latest high level athletics performance centre in Africa.
The event in The Garden City, which mark another milestone in the long line and still growing list of achievements of the current board of Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN), under the able leadership of current president, Evangelist (Chief) Solomon Ogba, drew the crème de la crème of athletics from all corners of the world. The center is expected to help Nigeria develop its athletes, especially in the country's traditional areas of strength - sprints, the quarter-miles and the jumps.
Nigeria thus became the third of two African countries - alongside Senegal and Kenya - where such high level centers would be situated on the continent, and the location for the country's structure turned out to be University of Port Harcourt.
 “At last, we have been able to secure approval for the center from IAAF, to help our athletes develop their talents. We are happy because Nigeria can also boast in Africa that it has such a centre; we only had two such centers in Eldoret, Kenya and Dakar, Senegal. It is good for us at AFN,” AFN technical director, Navy Commodore Omatseye Nesiama enthused.
Nesiama also said the UNIPORT centre would specialize in Nigeria's areas of strength like the sprints, the quarter-miles and the jumps, to help to develop athletes.
“We want our athletes to improve on their strengths and work on their weaknesses and I am sure that with this center and adequate usage of the facility, our athletes will improve,” he submitted.