Nesiama Expects Bright Future

Athletics Federation of Nigeria technical director, Navy Commodore Omatsheye Nesiama is optimistic the center will turn around Nigeria athletics when it becomes operational.

Nesiama said the next two years will be crucial for development and hopefully at the next Olympics there will be no sad tales to tell of the country’s athletics.

“With the High Performance centre starting soon, we are looking forward to rapid development of athletics in Nigeria. It has been approved by the IAAF and we are only putting things together to have it take off as soon as possible.

“As you know, the centre encompasses all aspects of athletics development. Local and international coaches will be on hand to train our athletes,” said Nesiama.

He submitted that the AFN is putting every machinery in place to start the developmental programme. This include performance based training meant for athletes who are already matured and grassroots development, which will see coaches scout for young talents that will be groomed to international standards.

“Within the next two years, we hope to see a remarkable improvement in Nigerian athletics. Some of the athletes we took to the Olympics are under 26 and we hope to give them all the necessary support and training to get them up to world standards performers,” Nesiama added.

World Class Coaches Coming-AFN Seeks IAAF Involvement

In order to achieve the purpose of the High Performance Center approved for the development of Nigeria athletics, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has decided to recommend World class athletics coaches to the center.

This enchanting angle to the performance centre was provided by AFN president, Evangelist Solomon Ogba, while thanking the IAAF president, Lamine Diack for approving the center for Nigeria. Ogba went on to appeal to Diack to be patient with Nigeria when the center begins as it will take some time to achieve desired results from the athletes but promised that before long, the world will see the benefit of the center.

According to Ogba, Nigeria is blessed with young talent but attributed the failure of athletes to none harvesting of the abundant athletes in the country.

“I want to specially thank the IAAF President lamine Diack and the President of the CAA, Colonel Hamad Kalkaba for their decision to site the center in Nigeria. Both men did us proud for the honour.

“We are blessed with talents in Nigeria but we have not been able to harvest the best and with the coming of the High Performance Center, Nigeria will begin to see the abundant athletes there are.” Apart from approving the center for Nigeria, Evangelist Solomon Ogba said Lamine Diack also approves a grant of $50. 000 for the take off of the center.

 “Apart from approving the center, Diack has also approved a take off grant of 50, 000 pounds and to also increase it from that amount.

Journey To Garden City -As Honorary Awards Flow At UNIPORT

The first hint about the 2013 establishment of the IAAF high level performance center in Port Harcourt came in November last year, during the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Centenary Gala Show in Barcelona, Spain.
On the fringes of the gala, the IAAF top brass confirmed the formal agreement to seal the deal would be signed in January 2013. The highlight of the IAAF Centenary Gala was the announcement of Jamaica’s World and Olympic champion, Usain Bolt and American Allyson Felix, as 2012 Male and Female Athletes of the Year. Bolt, who won the award for the fourth time, and Felix, a first-time winner, received their trophies and $100,000 prize at the Athletes of the Year Awards ceremony in the Grand Ballroom of the Pullman Skipper Hotel, while Jamaica’s
Head Coach, Glen Mills was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award. Attention then shifted to February, on the sidelines of the official launch of the center, IAAF boss, Lamine Diack, was conferred with an honorary doctorate degree by the University of Port Harcourt, during the institution's 29th convocation ceremony.
Technical Director of Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Omatseye Nesiama disclosed that the Senegalese track and field guru was in Nigeria on a three day visit (February 7 to 9) to receive the award, to assess the HPTC site and get an opportunity to determine where the IAAF could assist Nigeria.
 “The University of Port Harcourt honoured Diack for his contributions to track and field in Nigeria based on the approval of the establishment of a High Performance Training Centre located at the sports complex of the University of Port Harcourt last November,” Nesiama explained. AFN President, Solomon Ogba alongside National Sports Commission (NSC) Director General, Dr. Patrick Ekeji, former AFN boss, Dan Ngerem and Nigeria Olympic President, Sani Ndanusa, were awardees of Fellows award of the University of Port Harcourt Sports Institution.

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.

Blood Test For All Athletes In Daegu -IAAF

The IAAF will collect blood samples from ALL athletes taking part in the IAAF World Championships in Daegu in an unprecedented anti-doping programme.

This programme will be conducted in close co-operation with the Lausanne WADA-accredited Anti-Doping Laboratory (LAD) and with the support of the World Anti-Doping Agency and a number of local partners including the Daegu Local Organizing Committee, the Korean Anti-Doping Agency and the Doping Center of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology.

The blood testing programme in Daegu is being organized in addition to the regular doping controls that are collected at a World Championships (in Daegu, approximately 500 urine samples shall be collected in and out-of-competition combined).

What is the blood testing programme?

Blood samples will be collected from all athletes participating in the World Championships.

The samples will mainly be collected at a purpose-built doping control station located in the Athlete’s village starting from 18 August 2011.

The samples will be analyzed by the LAD on-site in Daegu for a first haematological screening analysis and after the end of the Championships in Lausanne for further analyses.

The analyses by the LAD will focus on measuring relevant parameters (biomarkers) for individual profiling purposes within the framework of the Athlete Biological Passport.

The fundamental principle of the Athlete Biological Passport is based on the monitoring of an athlete’s biomarkers over time.  The focus is not on the detection of prohibited substances or methods themselves, as for traditional doping tests, but on proving the use and effect of these substances and methods by way of abnormal variations in an athlete’s biomarkers that would otherwise be stable.

As one of the leading International Sport Federations in the fight against doping, the IAAF has fully engaged in the implementation of the Athlete Biological Passport at an early stage since it believes it to be a key tool in the modern fight against doping.

Why is this programme unprecedented?

It will be the first time that a heterogeneous population of nearly 2000 elite athletes competing in a major sports event will be blood tested under the same optimal conditions, within the same time period.

The blood testing will cover all disciplines in Athletics and a wide range of relevant biomarkers.  Notably, the analyses will not only screen markers indicating the use of EPO or blood manipulation in endurance events (as has been the IAAF’s practice to date) but also markers potentially indicating steroid or growth hormone doping more relevant to the power disciplines.

The data collected will therefore constitute a unique database of reference ranges for various biomarkers in elite male and female athletes competing in different disciplines and from different ethnical backgrounds. The IAAF considers this to constitute a major step forwards in the development of the Athlete Biological Passport in the sport of Athletics and indeed the Athlete Biological Passport generally.

What will the IAAF do with the results?

The results will be used:

(i) As a first “fingerprint” for athletes with no previous records at the IAAF;

(ii) To build upon already existing athlete profiles recorded and followed at the IAAF;

(iii) To establish the reference ranges of relevant biomarkers in a heterogeneous population of elite male and female athletes.

How will the IAAF follow-up on the results?

Suspicious results from the screening analyses performed on-site could, where appropriate, trigger follow-up target tests in Daegu in urine (notably for EPO) and/or further analyses for prohibited substances or prohibited methods in blood in Lausanne.

All results can ultimately be used in support of an anti-doping rule violation if an athlete’s overall biological profile is found to be consistent with the use of a prohibited substance or a prohibited method, in accordance with IAAF Anti-Doping Rules and Regulations.

Culled from iaaf.org

IAAF World Championship: AFN Sure Of 17 Selected Athletes

  

The Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) has listed seventeen athletes comprising of fourteen females and four men to represent the country in the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships coming up from the 27^th August to 4^th September in Daegu, South Korea.

According to the President of the federation, Chief Solomon Ogba, athletes selected are medal prospect as the World Championship is not a jamboree.

In the list released Tuesday by the media officer of the federation, Duro Ikhazuegbe, Africa track queen, Blessing Okagbare will be competing in the 100m 4x100m and Long Jump events. Former US sprinter, Gloria Asunmu who debuted in Nigeria during the national trials in Calaber will run in the 100m and 4x100m while Damola Osayomi will also be on track for the 100m and 4x100m.

Included on the list are, Africa hurdles champion, Seun Adigun 100m hurdle and 4x100m, University of Texas in El Paso (UTEP) track sensation, Endurance Abinuwa goes for 4x100m. Agnes Osazuwa 4x100m, Bukola Abogunloko  4x400m, Margaret Etim  4x400m, Ajoke Odumosu 400m hurdle and 4x400m, Blessing Mayungbe 4x400m, Chizoba Okodogbe 4x400m, Omolara Omotosho Shot Put, Doreen Amata High Jump, Ogho Oghene Egwero 100m, Peter Emelieze 100m, Stanley Gbagbeke  Long Jump and Africa and Commonwealth Games triple jump champion, Tosin Oke is also on the list.

Tosin Oke’s Dazzling Rise To Stardom

Nigeria’s Triple Jump hero, Tosin Oke gave a glimpse of what Nigerians should expect at the 10th All Africa Games in Maputo when he jumped a season’s best of 17.21m at the 59th edition of the London Samsung Diamond League. The lift placed him in the second position after American Christian Taylor recorded 17.68m to win the gold and another Nigerian-born British star Idowu Phillips came third with 17.07m. Taylor produced a personal best while Oke produced a season’s best to upset defending world champion Idowu on a good day for Nigerian athletes at the Crystal Palace Diamond League meet which ended on Saturday.

The U.S. champion and Idowu were lavishly celebrated by the media in their respective countries but Oke went home an unsung hero. He did not make frontpage news in Nigeria like his counterparts. Even the American and British media simply made passing reference to his feat while the British newspapers canonized Christie Ohuruogu who came last in the 400m women. 

Tosin Oke deserves all the epithets and accolades in the English lexicon especially with his carriage and confidence at the London Diamond Meet as he gave the American and his compatriot, Idowu a run for their money. It was unfortunate that he could not leap over the 17.68m record of the American but it was obvious that his intention was to dust the champion and edge his name in gold like he did at the last Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India.

At 31, Oke’s rise from a Cambridge rookie in 1997 to world’s top five is phenomenon. His case becomes a classic example of rugged determination to catch a niche for one self when he chose to dump Britain where he had brightest future to pit his tent with his fatherland, Nigeria where our heroes are usually not worshipped or hardly celebrated like the western world. Since 2008 that he declared his interest in competing for his country of origin, Nigeria, it has been a case of leaping from grace to grace.

In the 2010 season, Tosin jumped a series of personal bests indoors, finishing with 16.89m in Birmingham. In his finest season so far, he went on to win the 2010 African Championships in Nairobi, Kenya with a personal best jump of 17.22m, 1 cm off the Championship record, and to top it off, became the 2010 Commonwealth Games Champion in New Delhi, India with his second furthest jump ever—17.16m.

The longest standing national record in track and field in Nigeria is the leap of 17.26 m in the triple jump event set by Ajayi Agbebaku almost three decades ago in Edmonton, Canada and we have the strong conviction that the current African and national champion can surpass the mark pretty soon, as the London-based jumper’s swan-sung has been winning medals for the country and himself as his top priority.

We are particularly happy that Nigeria stands a pole position at the All Africa Games in Maputo. Baring injury, nothing can stop the guy from the podium while the whole of Maputo stands still for the Nigerian National Anthem after he must have broken the Games record.

With athletes like Tosin, Chika Chukwumerije, Blessing Okagbare and a host of others, Team Nigeria appear set for another record breaking outing at the All Africa Games irrespective of the evil machination of South Africa.

With 17.21m, Oke remains one of Nigeria's biggest prospects for a medal at both the All African Games in Mozambique where he will make his debut as well as the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea.

Aware that coming tops in Maputo will not be a stroll in the pack like it was in Calabar, Oke already has his eyes on his ‘closest rivals' and his plans well cut out. There is a South African guy, Mokoena Khotso, who is coming back to the triple jump, so he is going to be on his radar. He was a silver medalist in the long jump at the World Championships, so Oke should see him as biggest rival. There was also the Cameroonian who came second during the Commonwealth Games, but the main thing is the World Championships. Getting to the finals and trying to get a medal will be a morale booster to the AAG with the euphoria of the World Championships.

Looking at the journey so far, it won’t be out of place to say that Nigerians aren’t seen nothing yet. The sky may not be able to limit for him.