NOC worried by Nigeria’s poor performance in Paris 2024 qualifiers

Tobi Amusan

.Urges Sports Ministry to invest in pre-games campaign

Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) President, Habu Gumel, has raised the alarm over the low number of Nigerian athletes that have qualified for next year’s Paris Olympic Games. He lamented that Nigerian athletes have not been attending some of the qualifiers for the Games because of inadequate funding.

Speaking at a joint meeting of the NOC, the sports federations and sports ministry, Gumel said that Nigeria currently has only qualified for eight slots at the forthcoming Olympics, a situation which, he added, is not encouraging as the country is one of the top sporting nations of the world.

“As of today heading into the Olympic year 2024, our nation has only qualified three athletes, one each in cycling and wrestling. This is a far cry from expectations, even though we are still hopeful of qualifying more athletes, especially with the women’s basketball and women’s football teams still engaged in their qualifying series,” he said.

He renewed the call for stakeholders to test run their readiness for the 2024 Olympic Games by using the African Games for both qualification and awareness drive.

The NOC president noted that after several postponements of the 13th Africa Games (AG), which will be finally hosted by Ghana from March 8 to March 23, 2024 in Accra, the AG will offer opportunities for Nigerian athletes to book their tickets for the Paris Olympics.

According to Gumel, of the 29 sports on offer at the Africa Games, eight will be Olympic qualifiers and seven demonstration sports.

“It is hoped that Nigeria, which has performed well in past African Games, will use the opportunity of the AG to qualify more athletes for the Summer Games in Paris, a city famed as the