Legendary African athletics star, Innocent Egbunike has pointed the ways forward for Nigerian athletics to regain its lost glories and return to the top cadre in the world athletics rankings.
During an online chat with journalists the iconic tracks quatermiler and Olympic medalist reaffirmed the agelong belief that Nigeria has immense talents that can rule the world of athletics once again.
” We have the talents and I see a glimmer of hope for our athletics in the future. We just need to plan ahead. A failure to plan, is a plan to fail” he quipped.
Egbunike who is now an athletics coach based in the USA, remarked that coaching is a ministry. He admitted that he made mistakes during his illustrious career. And he would not want his athletes to repeat the same mistakes.
“I made all the mistakes and my goal is to not let any athlete I coach make the same mistakes I made. A father’s dream is to see his children do better than he did,” he stated.
While lamenting that Nigeria has lost the touch of developing athletes from elementary school level, interhouse sports, National high school meets, sports festivals, he stressed that for Nigerian athletics to regain its pride of place, it need officials with great compassion for track and field and the desire to want the athletes to succeed.
On the ways forward for Nigerian athletics, he said; “We need to brainstorm what on what worked in the past and what didn’t and then bring in a few good men and women to lead the way in developing a 10 year plan moving forward.
” I am talking about individuals that are dedicated and determined to see Nigeria succeed. We are blessed with a sea of talents. There are enough Chidi Imoh, Fatima Olukoju, Chioma Ajunwa, Blessing Okagbare and thousands who are out there and ready to be discovered,” he enthused.
Growing up in the 70s, threw up several sporting opportunities and with the availability of renowned and properly trained coaches and physical educationists at all levels to help develop and harness sporting talents.
According to Egbunike, and like most Nigerian kids, he started out his sports life as a footballer. And he had so much self belief to succeed in the game. Until he changed his mind.
“I started with soccer, and I believe I would have done well in soccer as well. However, I liked the tracks better because it is an individual sport. There is not too much politics in it. It is the individual athlete against the stop watch,” he explained gleefully.
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