As athletes battle it out at the Tokyo Olympics games in Japan.
Former Olympic gold medallist and caretaker boss of the Nigeria wrestling federation, Honourable Daniel Igali says not enough is directly being done to harness and prepare Nigerian athletes for Olympic glory.
“The truth is that sports is expensive, very expensive to run. In addition to getting the right people to manage our sports, we must massively invest in our athletes”.
With few athletes crashing out of the race for a podium finish at the Tokyo Olympic games, Honourable Igali stated that paucity of funds was the reason for the dwindling fortunes of team Nigeria at the Olympics.
“The female Canadian wrestling team’s budget for the past two years of the Olympic cycle was $4.6 million. What’s the combined budget of all sports feerations in Nigeria? It shall get better” Igali stated.
The Bayelsa state Commissioner for youth and sports development, want government to do more for sports through proper athletes funding.
“Just look at the countries with the most gold medals at the current Olympic, it tells the story”. Igali lamented.
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