:mad: Crisis trails athletes‘ trip to Korea
By Adekunle Salami
Published: Monday, 21 Jul 2008
The National Sports Commission has incurred the wrath of Team Nigeria following the delay in the proposed overseas training tour of Korea ahead of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
The athletes were scheduled to travel on Saturday but the poor travelling arrangements by the NSC aborted the trip, a situation they have frowned upon.
Though the NSC handed over the Olympic team to the Nigeria Olympic Committee on Friday, it was learnt that the training tour was a government project.
Again, the athletes were billed to have travelled a month ago according to the original plans of the NSC that every team to the games must be out on tour for at least six weeks.
“This preparation is just too poor and to know that we are going for the Olympic Games makes it worse. We were on tour for two months before the 2003 All Africa Games and now we are still in Nigeria preparing for a global event. It is bad,” one of the athletes said.
A team official, who also spoke to our correspondent on the telephone on Saturday, argued that the crisis between the NOC Chairman, Abdulrahman Gimba, and his directors was the cause of the current plight of Team Nigeria.
“The minister is not happy with his directors. They are not working together and we are the ones suffering it. I’m not sure they are thinking of results from Beijing and that is unfortunate,” he said.
Our correspondent learnt that a top political appointee in the NSC decided to change the travelling agent of the body and it affected the proposed trip billed for Saturday.
It was also learnt that the government released over N1billion for the games last week but Gimba allegedly delayed the disbursement of the money, which could have enabled the athletes to travel before last Friday.
The Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Olympic Committee, Tony Nezianya, also told our correspondent that the body was faced with multiple problems concerning Beijing 2008.
Only last Friday the NSC handed over Team Nigeria to the NOC with the problem of travelling yet to be sorted out.
Nezianya said, “We expect the athletes to travel in batches this week. The advance team will leave tonight (Sunday night) and the athletes will travel between Tuesday and Friday to their respective training camps.
“We however have problems with the Olympic family which comprise people who have so much to do for the country in Beijing but are not accredited and the embassy has been so unfriendly to us on visas.
“Some association chairmen might not travel to Beijing the way things are going.”
The men and women’s football teams are already in Korea on a playing tour while all other athletes are still in Nigeria.
Boxing, athletics, weightlifting, table tennis, wrestling, badminton, taekwondo and judo are the other sports yet to embark on tour in preparation for the games.
The competition holds between August 8 and 24 in Beijing.