We Want To Take Youths From The Grassroots to The Peak of Their Career says Coach and Founder of D’Victors Athletic Club

By Samuel Bamisebi

A lot of people have attested to the talents hidden in Nigeria but few can tell about how hard they work at the grassroots level as little or no attention is giving to them, hence, they go unnoticed.

Sports247 stumbled on athletes training at the MKO Abiola Stadium in Abeokuta during its travels and decided to give an audience to the young athletes who were training so heavily there. After speaking to several athletes, it was discovered the name of the club was D’Victors Athletic Club.

The founder of the club, who incidentally is also the coach of the team, Olalekan Adebote, said “the vision of the club is to take kids and youths from the grassroots to the peak of their career which is the pro level, by taking them off the streets.”

“We’re just a year and two months and we’ve had improvements in our athletes such as a 400m athlete who started with a time of 53secs and now runs 47secs, a lady who started with 13.2secs but now runs 11.7secs in her 100m, as well as jumpers who started with a jump distance of 4m but now jumps 6.8-6.9m and these are young children of U17 and U18 age,” coach Olamilekan said.

The coach who trained in Altis in the United State said the Coronavirus pandemic affected their season calendar but they still move on and conduct internal trials to get their athletes acquainted with the heat of real tournaments while also qualifying for other competitions.

“Currently in Ogun state, the fastest female, second-fastest male, and the fastest quarter-miler are in this club and we’re preparing for National Sports Festival, Athletics Federation of Nigeria’s meet in Akure and we’re in the process of planning our own meet like what Making Of Champions (MOC) do in Lagos which will be our first edition,” said the founder of D’Victors Academy, Olamilekan.

“No one is bankrolling me or the club, I have other businesses I do such as owning recreational centers, farming, and also Forex trading which I use the proceeds to keep the club afloat. All the kits used by the athletes were gotten by me and whenever they win, what they win belongs to them. I don’t get anything from them, this is like an NGO to me. I just do all this to get them comfortable to do well” he said.

He however stated that if corporate entities or anyone is willing to help sponsor the club or its athletes, the doors are open and they’re ready to have such partners. Their performance is his gain in terms of recognition.