The President of Cycling Federation of Nigeria (CFN), Giandomenico Massari, said the sport was growing slowly in the country, affecting the performance of Team Nigeria in the just concluded African championship.
Massari disclosed this at the weekend during the closing ceremony of the 2022 African Track Cycling Championship held at Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja.
“Team Nigeria has done well but many things have to be done because we cannot compare our performance with other countries,” he said.“When we hosted the Africa Cup championship for the first time in 2019, we (Nigeria) won a total of 51 medals.
“Our contingent was made up of 21 cyclists of both female and male categories .
“We garnered a total of 51 medals made up of 21 Gold, 18 Silver and 12 Bronze medals to emerge champions,” he said.
“Rather this year, we have a contingent of 35 cyclists of both female and male categories; we were able to garner 17 medals, consisting four Gold, seven Silver and six Bronze medals,” he said.
He said Nigeria did not live up to the expectations of the Federation and the country but hopefully would do more during the next Championships.
“In the championship in 2019, Egypt came second, winning eight Gold, seven Silver and seven Bronze medal but Egypt now have 26 medals consisting of eight Gold, eight Silver and 10 Bronze medals in the just concluded championship.
” Morocco came third with four gold and three silver medals. Burkina Faso took fourth position with three silver, five bronze whereas Burundi came fifth with two bronze medals,” he noted.
The final medal table saw the South Africa cycling team finishing first with 42 medals including 20 Gold, 13 Silver and nine Bronze while Egypt followed with 26 medals with eight Gold, eight Silver and 10 Bronze medals as Algeria had 17 medals consisting of five Gold, five Sliver and seven Bronze.
Team Nigeria hit 17 medals comprising four Gold, seven Silver and six Bronze