Nigeria’s senior national women’s basketball team, D’Tigress, have been urged to make the country proud at the 2024 Olympic Games which starts officially on Friday in Paris France.
The management of Zenith Bank Plc, sponsors of the annual national women’s basketball league, made the clarion call at the weekend in Lagos.
Nigeria secured a berth for the games after participating I a qualifying tournament which was held in Antwerp, Belgium. D’ Tigress played in Group B against Germany, Australia, and host nation Belgium.
In Paris, D’Tigress will play their opening game against Australia on July 29, before facing the host nation France on August 1 followed by a match against Canada three days later on August 4.
The Group Managing Director of Zenith Bank, Adaora Umeoji, said the outfit expected the women basketball team to perform well at the Games.
“We know our team will be up against top national teams but we are hopeful they will do well. We want them to work hard and get good results for Nigeria and Africa,” Umeoji said. “Zenith Bank is proud of D’Tigress because in close to two decades, we have been sponsoring the women basketball league which incidentally has produced better percentage of the players in the national team.”
Meanwhile, the D’Tigress yesterday lost their second Pre-Olympic Games warm up following their 70-62 points loss to Serbia in Belgrade.
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The Nigeria’s representatives were beaten earlier by Germany 77-63 points on Friday in Berlin, Germany before yesterday’s defeat.
The game was 39-29 points in favour of Serbia at half time while they still trailed by 10 points at 57-47 points at the end of third quarter.
Yet Head Coach Rena Wakama is optimistic that Nigeria will do well at the games.
“Things have been going well in the camp in the last few days, as we have had great practice sessions and the girls are in great spirits,” she told the NBBF media.