With less than two months left for the Africa Games in Ghana, the Athletics Federation of Nigeria is aiming to organise a series of competitions to keep the country’s athletes in top shape ahead of event billed to start March 8, 2024.
By the time of the Games, most athletes may have not reached to peak performance level, but according to the AFN Head of Competitions and Management Committee, Commodore Omatseye Oscar Nesiama (rtd), despite all the challenges competitions would be lined to enable the athletes have a competitive edge by the time the Games begin.
“As head of competitions, our job is to make sure athletes compete all the time,” said Commodore Nesiama.
“Although times are short, the latest we heard from the Africa Games organisers in Ghana was that all entries should be submitted by Middle of February, this makes our job very tight and urgent, it then means that AFN will adjust it’s programmes to accommodate the National Trials within a short time in other to get all our athletes involve.”
He stated that AFN will start it’s first competition for the season early in February and consistently through March for athIetes to get adequate preparations, insisting that: “There are more Competitions this year, aside the AFN Golden league, Africa Games and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games are huge task, but not insurmountable.”
Nesiama added that the accommodation of foreign based athIetes in the AFN Africa Games competitions programme would happen without undue protocols, adding that the Federation is going to be dynamic to relax certain rules that may hinder athletes anywhere in the world from attending trials.
He assured that athIetes would have the best of time for preparations and warned that the federation would not tolerate any complacency as there would be strict adherence to discipline and laid down rules.
