After our dismal outing at last year’s Olympics, I wrote a piece suggesting that we should emulate the Chinese government who is always on a serious hunt for promising athletes.. They like to catch them early, so, they scout for them all over the country. When those with prospects are found, the government puts them in hostels and takes over their education and training. I do know that there are individual coaches here who, on their own, go to sporting events at grassroots level on talent-hunting.This is good news for those Nigerians who want our sports men and women to bring home lots of worthy medals from international sporting events; especially the Olympics and the Commonwealth games. It is very important that we start early, and the primary and secondary schools are good search grounds. Parents or guardians of promising athletes, and the heads of their schools, should be told about their ability, and their permission got before coaching begins. Their regular education should be taken into consideration, so that their studies are not neglected. Proper legal agreement should be drawn up to protect all the parties concerned.I suggest we shouldn’t limit our search to educational institutions. What about those young men whose dash to sell wares in traffic must be faster than that of Usain Bolt? What about wrestlers in the village squares across the country? And the fast swimmers and divers, and the canoe people in the riverine areas? Their prowess is awesome! All they need is good nutrition and intense training by experts so that they can perform according to laid-down rules in these sporting activities.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 05:45:16 +0000
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