World renowned track and field coach Taiwo Ariyo a.k.a Mr. T, has admonished Nigerian officials to be professional in their sports management, otherwise the country will continue to suffer poor results in international competitions.
Ariyo who is the head athletics coach at Warner University Florida, USA stated that it was insane for a country with over 180 million people to be relying on one athlete to win a medal and they also doing the same thing over and over; and expecting a different result.
Coach T who was speaking against the background of the recent Paris 2024 Olympics dismal outing for Nigeria, said the country needs to catch up with the rest of the world because it has been left behind in sports development.
“How can we be doing the same thing year in and year our and be expecting a different result? This is plainly insane,” Ariyo said in a chat.
“And we would now be pining our hopes on one athlete who has managed to scrape through to the world elite level.
“It was the pressure of winning a medal that got to Tobi Amusan at the Olympics.
“How can a country of over 180 million people depend on one athlete to win medals? It was the same thing during the days of Blessing Okagbare.
“Look at China and the USA how they got medals coming in from every angle, no one athlete is under any kind of pressure to win for them.
“There has to be at least three Tobis in our team, but that is not the case, this is because we haven’t made any investments in track and field and indeed other sports.”
He submitted that other countries were already look ahead at LA 2028 Olympics even before the Paris Games began, but Nigeria after the blame game of the Paris 2024 Olympics will go to sleep.
“Olympics preparations is not a matter of three weeks or three months but years. In Nigeria it is not about sports development, but people lining up their pockets.”
He said Nigeria has a rich pool of talents, but due to poor management of the athletes they do not achieve their true potentials.
“We do not manage our athletes effectively. I will give you one example. Look at the case of Udodi Uwazurike, he started out at the same time with Leselie Tebogo in the African junior Championships, but where is he today, and we see the Botswana lad winning gold?
” It is because we don’t give our athletes professional management, we now look up the few that have emerged. There should be ten Udodis so that one athlete does not feel pressured or feel they can do whatever they want to do when they are needed to compete.”
Ariyo submitted that Nigerian coaches also need to upgrade and update themselves.
“We need to get our coaches working and to be up to date in modern methods. You don’t sit down and apply programmes developed by other coaches to train your athletes. Those programmes were developed specifically for a purpose. Coaches have to learn how to do smart training to bring the best out of their athletes.
“There are online courses, seminars coaches can tap into to update their knowledge.
“Our coaches should be the ones going to competitions so that they can learn. It would pay the country more to take them to international competitions, because those NCAA coaches they rely on would not go to our villages to discover athletes… we should stick to our home grown coaches.”
Off the field Ariyo said competent sports officials should man sensitive positions in sports administration in the country.
“For our sports to grow that would be the first step to take. We have to put the right persons into the right positions, we have practically destroyed our sports with politics.
“We have knowledgeable Nigerians all over the world but for reasons best known to Nigerian sports officials, they are hardly ever consulted.”
Coach T and former Nigerian 400m hurdler and record holder Ajoke Odumosu.