Olympian and former Nigeria’s fastest woman, Mary Onyali-Omagbemi has vowed to discover world class sprinters in the forthcoming grassroots programme tagged ‘Heritage Bank/Lagos State Skoolimpics’, slated between November 2-4 at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere and Rowe Park, Yaba.
Onyali said: “I have come back to give back to a programme that will bring about the next Mary Onyali .Unfortunately for me there was no such programme when I was growing up. I was only discovered through my school inter-house sports to the Olympic level but I am happy that companies like Heritage Bank and others, are bringing back what used to be tough during my days. Now they are going to make it much easier for athletes to be discovered and trained.”
In a chat with the NationSport on Tuesday, Onyali also expressed disappointment at the inability of the country to excel at the 2016 Olympics held in Brazil.
According to her, it was so unfortunate that Nigerian athletes failed to correct errors made in previous Olympic Games.
“If we get private sponsors to take part in this developmental programme which is done all over the world, we can avoid the drought we faced in 2012 and almost had in 2016. I pray we don’t have it again. It was the most painful experience. I had thought that after the mistake of 2012, we would have corrected our mistakes.
“So now, I need to add my two cents to avoid another disaster in 2020,” Onyali stated.
Comments
One response to “Ahead 2020 Olympics:We’ll discover world class athletes – Onyali”