Nigeria exported more than 50 athletes on scholarship to U.S. Colleges in 2023 alone, the former technical director of Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Commodore Omatseye Nesiama (rtd) has revealed.
Nesiama, disclosed in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Lagos, saying athletics had grown in leaps and bounds in Nigeria.
“Over 50 of our athletes have moved to the U.S., within the last one year and that is a great feat. These are the athletes in the developmental category before they find their feet and they have become attractive to the schools in the U.S. that called them up for scholarships.
“We cannot say because they have left, we will be lacking to shop for more, so we have given opportunities to the home based with two competitions recently.
“We have also spotted a few more talents to add to the pool of the ones we have before and they are all in the camp ahead of the African Games,” he said.
On what to expect from Team Nigeria, Nesiama who was recently appointed as one of the referees for the athletics 13th African Games, said that the Team Nigeria, with experienced and budding talents, would make the podium finish.
“A Majority of the home-based teams to African Games, about 90 per cent of them, qualified for the games by standard, so we have to take them.
“Another thing is that most of our foreign-based athletes are in school and we don’t have much time to get them out to participate at the African Games; just a few of them who are professionals will join.
“We are not totally reliant on the foreign-based athletes, which gives us the opportunity to let the home-based ones prove their mettle. Our team for the African Games is a good mix of foreign and home based athletes,” he said. (Leadership)