|
|
Nigeria: Taekwondo - Chukwumerije Holds the Key
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
This Day (Lagos)
COLUMN
23 July 2008
Posted to the web 24 July 2008
Femi Solaja
Lagos
Despite little or no preparation in virtually all the 10 events Nigeria will compete in at the Beijing Olympic Games, the country can still pull some surprises in one of the martial arts disciplines namely taekwondo.
Nigeria has invested heavily in the sport over the years since its debut at the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992 as a non scoring event, where she picked a silver medal.
While other sports namely football (both male and female) table tennis, judo, athletics, weightlifting and wrestling have little or no hope at reaching the medal range because of inadequate preparations, the same cannot be said of taekwondo's two-man team in Chika Chukwumerije (+81kg) and Isa Adamu (- 68kg). Both have in the last three months been busy perfecting their skills and competing at major tournaments around the globe.
While the rest of the 'Team Nigeria' athletes were languishing in various camp sites dotted across the country waiting in vain for proposed foreign tours, the two taewondoists enjoyed the rear privilege of Senator Uche Chukwumerije's backing.
Through the Senator, who helped to source for funds privately and with part support from the National Sports Commission (NSC), they have been able to execute most of their training programmes since the last All-Africa Games in Algeria last year. Chika is the Senator's son.
Both athletes followed up their gold medal outing at Algiers 2007, with another brilliant performance at the African Olympic qualifiers held in Tripoli, Libya in March this year to send signals to other competing nations of their determination to do well in Beijing.
Chukwumerije narrowly missed gold medal by whiskers at the All-Africa Games held in Abuja via a controversial decision of the umpire who ruled in favour of an Egyptian in the final match.
However, with the potential and desire to excel in the sport just as his father did in politics, young Chukwumerije, with the influence of his father, was able to embark on a training tour of USA which lasted about six weeks.
However, the tour suffered a little hitch following the refusal of the American embassy to give his team mate Adamu visa. However, the -68kg athlete did join him in Britain where they both had an intensive training session in Manchester where they had access to modern facilities.
They were also put through their paces by experienced coach Osita .A. Green.
Another long trip to Taiwan for another two weeks by the duo to perfect their leg work has further put them in good steed to enable them to compete at par with the foremost martial art nations like host China and Japan next month.
Not done with the fresh knowledge they have acquired in the last four months in their trip round the globe, the duo, according to the Taekwondo Federation of Nigeria (TFN) scribe Mrs. Anatesia-Jideonwo George, will depart the country from their Abuja camp to Germany for a two-week intensive training to further enhance the leg-work training they have passed through in the course of their stay in Taiwan.
|
Considering the general poor build up of the Nigerian team to the Beijing Olympics, the taekwondo duo will be going to the Games as some of the best prepared athletes of Team Nigeria.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
