Making of Champions (MoC) has been at the forefront of unearthing new athletics talents for Nigeria since its inception in 2013, today at the University of Benin Sports Complex, MoC supported by ND Western will be organising a one-day meet as part of its efforts at hunting for new talents. OLALEKAN OKUSAN, reports.
The likes of Jerry Jakpa, national 200m champion; Olympian Emmanuel Ojeli; Favour Ashe of University of Tennessee and Mercy Umoibang of Texas Tech in the United States were products of MoC and they continued to burn the tract for Nigeria at international levels.
Today at the University of Benin Sports Complex, MoC will be aiming to discover a new generation of athletes being its first major talent hunt since 2018.
The meet is organized for U-17 and U-20 with the mission to revive Nigeria’s sporting culture through athletics and academic programmes designed to build a strong foundation in sports and education with the sole aim of ensuring positive and life-changing outcomes for the nation’s youth at school, university and future careers.
“Nigeria has always had tremendous potential in athletics – despite our lack of focus in the sport, Nigeria still had the third-highest number of sub-10 second 100m runners in history after USA and Jamaica,” the founder of MoC, Bambo Akani told NationSport. “I decided to set up Making of Champions (MoC) after the London 2012 Olympics as Nigeria returned with no medals for the first time since Seoul ’88.
“That is what inspired me to set up MoC with a special interest in athletics, given that the sport has contributed over half of all the medals (14 out of 27) that Nigeria has won in the history of the Olympics,” he added.
Akani would further underline innate qualities of Nigerian budding talents that can be moulded to become world-beaters, adding there are inherent limiting factors that had long stifled such aspiring athletes.
“An average Nigerian athlete is very talented, with the potential to be world-beaters, but they often don’t get discovered early enough and mostly they don’t receive the support they need to develop that talent to their full potential,’ he continued. “ Look at the case of some of the athletes we discovered at the last major Making of Champions Trials in 2018 – in less than four years, several of them have already won national medals and/or represented Nigeria.
“This includes the likes of Favour Ashe and Miracle Thompson who recently received full US Collegiate Scholarships this year, with Favour already No. 6 in the world in 60m this year, and Miracle the most promising hurdler to come out of Nigeria perhaps since Tobi Amusan.
“We also have athletes still at MoC in Nigeria such as Gracious Ushie who is doing very well at the University of Lagos and is one of the most promising athletes in the nation currently.
“We discovered these athletes at ages 16-17, and we have given each of them a fantastic athletics foundation at MoC for at least three years which has set them up well for long successful careers in the sport.
“On average, you will see a lot more Nigerian athletes doing as well as them and more if there are concerted efforts to discover and develop them even earlier than we have,” Akani enthused.
Meanwhile, ND Western’s Corporate Communications Executive, Sayo Jimi-Oluseye, said the company is optimistic that a talented pool of athletes from the Niger Delta would be fished out at the one-day meet in Benin while affirming the commitment of ND Western in ensuring that athletes with potential are sponsored in future.
She said: “As title sponsor and partner for the MoC Athletics Trials, we are really excited to be part of this initiative that would help discover and develop the next athletic champions of Nigeria.
“The trial is also a great opportunity to identify young talents from our host communities trying to find a balance between their education and sporting interests.
“We are optimistic that in the near future, products of this trial will be recognised champions in Nigeria and the world at large.”
Speaking ahead of the competition, Akani, further outlined the reason for the trials even as he urged the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) to stage quality competitions and pay quality attention to the welfare of the athletes: “We are excited about the return of the MoC Athletics Trials as there is a need to continually replenish our pool of talents.
“It has been a while since our last trials in 2018 and the world and the nation have faced many challenges since then, particularly the coronavirus pandemic which put our trials on hold for the past couple of years. On this note we are thrilled to see one of our key long time partners, ND Western, take the initiative to support this year’s Trials as Title sponsors.
“This will play a pivotal role in unearthing Nigeria’s next generation of athletes for the Paris 2024 and LA 2028 Olympic Games.
“However, more quality competitions in Nigeria, long term planning to help athletes develop and plan for their futures with a good governance structure which will encourage sponsors across Nigeria to lend their weight to the enormous nation-building potential that the sport of athletics has,” he noted.