Sports
Team Nigeria Wins Maiden African Canoe Race
Team Nigeria has emerged overall winner of the maiden African Admiral Porbeni Canoe Race championships at the Jabi Boat Club in Abuja, Nigeria.
The championship began penultimate Thursday and ended last Sunday with no fewer than 100 athletes from five African countries including, Ghana, Senegal, Sao Tome and Principe, Togo and the host, Nigeria, taking part in the four-day event.
Team Nigeria amassed a total of 21 medals, including 14 Gold, six silver and one bronze to emerge the overall winners of the event.
Sao Tome and Principe came second with 14 medals, including one gold, six silver and seven bronze. Senegal finished third with 12 medals, including one gold, three silver, and eight bronze.
Nigeria’s Ayomide Bello finished as the overall best female athlete, winning three gold medals in all the three events she competed for including the 1000m C1 women, 200m C1 women and 500m C1 women. Bello was ranked 13th in the 2019 World Championships in Hungary and also won 4 gold medals from four events as a rower at the Admiral Porbeni Boat Race in 2021.
Yinlayefa Godhelp, Nigeria’s youngest athlete also won gold in two events: the 1000m K1 women and the 500m K1 women.
Godhelp, who was found only a year ago, established herself as a young phenomenon by winning the 500-metre C1 race at the National Sports Festival.
She went on to represent Nigeria at the second Africa Beach Games in Tunisia in 2023, finishing fourth in her first international competition.
Team Nigeria went home with a 3,000 dollars prize money, while Sao Tome and Principe pocketed 2,000 dollars with Senegal taking 1,000 dollars.
Team Nigeria’s Captain, Moses Michael, expressed joy at the team’s victory, adding that it wasn’t an easy feat even though everyone had high expectations for the team.
In preparation for the team for the Olympics qualifiers in November and Paris 2024, Michael stressed on the need to open training camp early for the athletes, adding that the Olympics was already around the corner.
Micheal appealed to the Federal Government to assist the team because November is around the corner and Olympics training is expected to commence immediately. Some athletes in other countries have started preparations for the Olympics a year ahead of the event.
England captain Harry Kane netted a hat-trick to guide Bayern Munich to an impressive victory against Stuttgart.
Kane’s goals, plus one from Kingsley Coman, helped Bayern end a three-game winless run in all competitions.
They faced a tough task against a Stuttgart side who sat back and limited their chances, leading Vincent Kompany’s side to enter the break frustrated and with the deadlock unbroken.
Bayern eventually found a way past Stuttgart’s steely defence when Kane drilled a low effort into the bottom corner from around 30 yards out after Joshua Kimmich overturned possession.
Former Nigeria goalkeeper, Dosu Joseph, is full of thanks to God after he miraculously survived another life-threatening automobile accident recent at Kara, along the Lagos-Ibadan Express Way, where a heavy-duty truck ran into his SUV.
Narrating his ordeal, the 51-year-old, who guided Nigeria to gold in the Men’s Football Tournament of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, broke the news in a statement on his social media handles on Friday.
“To God be the glory, another death escaped by Grace and Mercy of God. Me and my friend SM were at Enyo Filling Station after Ojodu Berger bus stop to get fuel on Wednesday, October 2, 2024, around 6 p.m. when this MACK truck fully loaded with iron, with registration number LND 470 XX, left the road and crushed my car beyond repairs. Thank God for life,” he stated.
This is the second time the soft-spoken club proprietor will cheat death by a whisker, having been involved in an accident in 1997 that ended his career at 23 and left his spinal cord in bad shape.
He helped Julius Berger win the Nigeria FA Cup in November 1997 shortly a memorable Olympic outing by keeping a clean sheet in the finals against Katsina United. The following year, he was involved in the auto along Ikorodu Road, Lagos, which not only cut his career short but also left him almost paralysed, ending his spell at Serie A club Reggiana.
The former Nigeria international, who also kept goal for Julius Berger FC, said the case has been reported to Isheri Police Station, Ogun State, where the driver is currently detained and the truck also seized.
According to him, the owner of the truck said he can’t fix the badly damaged SUV until after a year.
Ex – Super Eagles of Nigeria, Okwuchukwu Waobikeze has observed that sports development in Nigeria is going down.
According to him, grassroots sports is very important, without it, the administrators cannot get it right. So everybody should key into grassroots sports development, he said.
Waobikeze said this last Wednesday in an interview with sports journalists shortly after the Port Harcourt All Stars Independence football festival (OCTOBERFEST) at the Port Harcourt club, Rivers State.
He explained that for sports administrators to get it right, grassroots development is key. “They should be organising competition at the grassroots level to fish out the young ones for different sporting activities.
“Grassroots sports is very important so the administrators have to go back to the grassroots.
” Sports Development in Nigeria is going down we need to go back to the basics.
“Look at the just concluded Paris Olympics, Nigeria did not win any medal.
” Our football team did not even qualify for the Olympics. We are going down.
” If they should go back to the grassroots, they will get young ones in the games and talents will be developed.
” I started from school games, to youth games before playing for the national team. Now everybody wants to fly board to play professional football and a lot do not know the basics of the game.
” A lot of people did not know the little things about the game, they just want to play. It is not done so,” Waobikeze stated.
Kiadum Edookor