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Nigeria/Ethiopia: National Relays Re-Echo in Ethiopia
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Vanguard (Lagos)
5 May 2008
Posted to the web 5 May 2008
Ben Efe
Lagos
National Sports Commission officials felt justified at the weekend as the highly rated Nigeria 4x100m relay team dropped their baton at the African Championships, which ended Sunday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Nigeria did not finish the race as a poorly coordinated change over between Deji Aliu and Obinna Metu cost Nigeria a medal placing. The quartert also featuring Uchenna Emedolu and Durotoye Adetuyi were running together for the first.
That not withstanding, dropping of baton and poor exchange have always been a problem of the Nigerian male team. It was with the intention of ending this poor showing that the National Sports Commission introduced the national relay championships. The first took place in Abuja June 26, while the next will be in Calabar May 10. The NSC programme is equally a development programme that is meant to keep sprinters and quarter milers busy and competitive regularly.
"Relays are our best chances of winning medals at the Olympics. And we all know the problem our teams have
always faced in baton exchange.
"This is why we came up with the idea of the relay championship. This is with the hope that our coaches will correct some of these mistakes," NSC director-general, Amos Adamu stated.
The Athletics Federation of Nigeria had the opportunity of testing the Nigeria team at the last Relay meet held in Abuja, but the chance was not utilized. The relay team they presented in Ethiopia did not attend the Abuja meet and officials regretted this at the weekend.
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"We did not want the athletes to get hurt," said AFN vice-president Josiah Oluwole. He added that the Abuja meet was too close to African Championships.
"It would have been fine if we brought our team for rehearsal in the relay meets. We have no team work and our coaches don't know much about baton exchange," he lamented adding that the Nigerian teams will be made to grace the other legs of the relays coming ahead.
Dr. Adamu informed at the weekend that Olympic bound athletes would meet regularly in Europe to train and compete in events before the Beijing Games. He said that training grants had long been paid to some athletes to assist them prepare well for the Olympics.
Ethiopia: A model of African food aid is now in trouble By Nicholas Benequista Tue May 6, 4:00 AM ET
Farmers in Ethiopia are better off now than they were four years ago, in part due to better-than-average rains and rising grain prices globally. But there's another reason: Africa's largest beneficiary of foreign aid has shifted from food aid to cash assistance.
Ethiopia is seen by aid organizations as a model of how to best help hungry nations. But in an effort to prevent food riots in cities, the government here is again relying on foreign food aid and... [Read Full Text]
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