Sports ministry, federations strategise on Tokyo Olympics Preparations

The minister of youth and sports development, Sunday Dare has called on all federations to start preparations in earnest ahead of the 2020 Olympics Games hold in Japan.
The minister gave the charge Tuesday in Abuja during a meeting with federations and stakeholders on the need to hasting prearations ahead of the quadrennial event.
The Minister during the meeting held at MKO Abiola Stadium, reiterated the necessity of various national sports federations under his watch to start early preparations for Tokyo 2020 which he assured would be a departure from known results recoreded by the country in recent outings.
He said with less than 7 months, the country is neither late nor early in its preparations and urged the federations to double their efforts.
“We are left with barely 280 days to the commencement of the first two games as the Olympics and Paralympic games are scheduled to take place in Tokyo, Japan from July 21st to August 9th 2020 and 25th August to 6th September, 2020 respectively.
“As adept sports administrators, we are fully aware that it takes a minimum of 8 years for a country to make meaningful preparation to post podium performance at the Olympic and Paralympic Games and we don’t have such luxuries for the 2020 Tokyo games” he insisted.
Hon. Dare said that countries see Olympics Games as avenue to show off their sports prowess, make statement that they are leaders in their own right, and we cannot afford to employ the Olympics as a trial events, this is a global sporting competition.
The Permanent Secretary, Mr. Olusade Adesola, in his opening remarks, said that with just 280 days to Olympics, Nigeria needs to start preparations in earnest addng that the meeting marks the beginning of the journey to Tokyo 2020.
The meeting was attended by presidents, secretaries, technical directors of federaiions among others.