Wahid Enitan Oshodi, President of the African Table Tennis Federation (ITTF Africa), has reaffirmed the continental body’s commitment to supporting coaches in their quest to match their foreign counterparts.
Speaking as a guest at the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF)-organized National Hopes Week, Oshodi emphasized the importance of coaches growing alongside their players through regular training and courses to enhance their knowledge of the sport.
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Following the recent Level 2 Coaching Course held in Tunisia, Oshodi assured that more training opportunities would be provided for those shaping future stars in Africa.
“First of all, you need a pathway. Coaches who participated in last year’s ITTF training camp, which included the Level 1 Coaching Course, are part of this pathway. We want to see what the coaches are doing and bring the players they’ve been working with. For me, the main criterion is age.
We need these kids playing U-9 and U-10 to develop into top players early. The best players in the world now are U-21, so we can’t do things differently. From what we’ve seen so far, Nigeria is on the right path.”
Oshodi added, “With NTTF National Hopes Week, we hope to see more talents emerge quickly. We have 30-40 children from all over Nigeria taking part, and the talent pool is much larger than that.
Our coaches are improving, and we’re working on getting new courses for them so they can transfer their knowledge to the children. We’re pleased with the progress, and the results are starting to show.”
Tunji Lawal, Chairman of the Lagos State Table Tennis Association, also praised the initiative. “These are the future generations of Nigeria, and it’s great to see them in action. This shows we have potential in Nigeria, and future stars like Aruna Quadri are emerging. We’re glad to have this kind of initiative for the development of the game in Nigeria.
I believe success comes from failure, so even if Lagos isn’t in the finals, it means we have more work to do to bring our players up to the required standard. We will continue to try and do our best,” Lawal said.
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