Former Paralympian and ex-coach of the powerlifting team of Nigeria, Prince Are Feyisetan says Team Nigeria Paralympians are still some of the best in the world in spite of the challenges of the last two years owing to the Covid 19 pandemic.
Feyisetan believes the inability of most of the nation’s para-athletes to compete in the different qualifying competitions leading to the Paralympic Games affected Team Nigeria’s chances of more podium finishes in Tokyo, Japan.
According to him, “the Covid 19 pandemic seriously impeded the preparations of the team. Indeed, this did not affect Nigeria alone, it touched everyone and everywhere. As you would have observed almost all countries are struggling to meet up with their pre-Paralympic Games expectations despite the fact that some of them had longer time to prepare.
” You can see that the Team Nigeria contingent to Tokyo is a lot smaller in number compared to the athletes that represented us at the 2016 Games in Rio, Brazil.
“Some of our parathletes didn’t qualify for Tokyo because we didn’t participate in many qualifying competitions and so our podium chances were already limited by numbers.”
The multiple award-winning coaches would then heap praises on the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development under Chief Sunday Dare for ensuring Team Nigeria made the most of the time they had to prepare.
“It takes four years to prepare for the Paralympic Games, the Minister came on board two years ago and he turned a lot of things around positively.
“I believe better days are ahead. I just want him to continue this way and you will see the best of our athletes in future competitions,” Feyisetan concluded.
