Ofili, Nwokocha, others are enjoying impact of High Performance Centre — Anugweje

Favour Ofili

In 2012, World Athletics and the Confederation of Africa Athletics (CAA) established the High Performance Centre at the University of Port Harcourt for Nigerian athletes and their counterparts in some neighbouring African countries to sharpen their skills.

The Centre in Port Harcourt is one of the seven established in Africa by WA and CAA. The others are in Cairo, Dakar, Lusaka, Lome, Mauritius and Nairobi.

Two years after the establishment of the Centre in Port Harcourt, the Federal Government keyed into it by signing an agreement in Casablanca, Morocco. Since then the nation’s athletics has recorded tremendous improvement, particularly in the short sprints.

To the Director of the High Performance Centre in Port Harcourt, Prof. Ken Anugweje, the early season form of some Nigerian athletes, mostly the student athletes participating in collegiate competitions in the United States of America, and a few others based at home, is as a result of the sold foundation they went through at the Centre before they travelled abroad.

Favour Ofili, who made big headline in USA last Saturday by smashing Blessing Okagbare’s 200m National Record, used the High Performance Centre in Port Harcourt to perfect her skills between 2015 and 2016.

“It is a thing of joy for us at High Performance Centre in Port Harcourt to see the likes of Favour Ofili, Rosemary Chukwuma, Grace Nwokocha, Ezekiel Nathaniel, Raymond Ekevwo and Praise Ofoku to flourish in their athletics career,” Prof. Anugweje told The Guardian in a telephone chat yesterday.

The performance by Ofili, Ofoku, Nwokocha and others have given the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) great hope, particularly in the build up to the African Senior Athletics Championship in Mauritius,