The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Olalekan Okusan

  • ITTF World: Animasahun, Oribamise lead others tocamp

    ITTF World: Animasahun, Oribamise lead others tocamp

    National junior sensations – Abayomi Animasahun and Tosin Oribamise will lead 18 others to the National Training Centre of the Lagos National Stadium for the camping ahead of the International Table Tennis Federation {ITTF} World Junior Championships in Cape Town, South Africa.

    Under the tutelage of seven-time Olympian, Segun Toriola, the players will be groomed in readiness for the world championship while the 10-man team will also be selected at the end of the camping on September 3.

    Some of the invited players were part of the team that featured at the ITTF African Junior Championship in Algiers where they qualified for the World Juniors, while outstanding players from the National U-16 tournament also made it to the camp.

    According to the President, Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF), Wahid Oshodi, the camping is necessary as some of the players would gain from the experience of Toriola, who has been celebrated globally for his consistency and discipline in the sport.

    “We are blessed with talents just like Aruna Quadri and we don’t want to lose the momentum by ensuring that we come through with our programmes. This camping becomes necessary as we want to select the best hands among the junior players so that they can also test might with their foreign counterparts at the world juniors. With the experience of Toriola and Michael Oyebode, who were both in Rio Olympic Games, I am confident that camping would have impart on the players and prepare them for the championship,” Oshodi said.

    He added: “The selected players will later go into close camping before the championship in November and they will continue to train in readiness for the competition. Toriola will surely depart to his base after the camping and we hope the coaches around can continue to sharpen the skills of the players before the tournament which has Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria and Tunisia representing Africa in Cape Town, South Africa.”

    The invited players are Abayomi Animasahun, Azeez Solanke, Amadi Umeh, Michael Abayomi, Augustine Emmanuel, Jamiu Ayanwale, Ololade Oyenekan, Tobi Falana, Etim Orok, Babafemi Babatunde and Umar Ibrahim for boys and the girls include Tosin Oribamise Agnes Onoja, Ajoke Ojomu, Alimot Ayinla, Rofiat Jimoh, Iyanuoluwa Falana, Vivian Akpan and Sukurat Aiyelabegan.

    NTTF will cater for the players’ feeding and accommodation while their states are expected to offset their transport fare.

  • Olympics: Nigeria’s hope for medals dwindles further

    Olympics: Nigeria’s hope for medals dwindles further

  • Olympics: NTTF plans celebration for legend Toriola

    Olympics: NTTF plans celebration for legend Toriola

    …Calls up 20 for World Juniors in SA

    To follow the footsteps of International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) is planning a befitting celebration for the first African to attend seven Olympic Games, Segun Toriola.

    According to the President of NTTF, Wahid Oshodi, it behooves on the federation to honour Toriola for his giant stride in the sport while there are plans to recommend the former African champion and others for national honours.

    “The NTTF will definitely be celebrating the Legend with a series of activities in Nigeria. His achievements are so inspiring that we must find a way to say thank you to this great talented patriotic Nigerian. The IOC, the ITTF and the ATTF have led the way and we surely will ensure that we give him a befitting award. We are also hopeful that the Ministry of Youth and Sports will join us in this laudable quest. This will be done at a time to fit into his busy schedule.”

    He added: “We shall also be making a fervent case for athletes like Toriola, Funke Oshonaike Bose Kaffo and Babatunde Obisanya  alongside other remarkable athletes outside football and athletics be recognized when national honours are being awarded.”

    Meanwhile, the federation is poised to build on the performance at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games as it has called up 20 players made up of 12 boys and eight girls for this year’s World Junior Championship holding later in the year in Cape Town, South Africa. The camping begins on Monday August 23 to September 3 at the National Training Centre of Lagos National Stadium.

    Teenage sensations – Abayomi Animasahun and Tosin Oribamise top the list of invited players. Others are Azeez Solanke, Amadi Umeh, Michael Abayomi, Augustine Emmanuel, Jamiu Ayanwale, Ololade Oyenekan, Tobi Falana, Etim Orok, Babafemi Babatunde and Umar Ibrahim made up the boys’ list, while the girls are – Agnes Onoja, Ajoke Ojomu, Alimot Ayinla, Rofiat Jimoh and Sukurat Aiyelabegan.

    The NTTF further said: “On his return to Nigeria from Rio, Toriola will lead a two week training session for the 20 junior players invited to camp for selecting the team that will represent Nigeria at the World Junior Table Tennis Championships holding in Cape Town, South Africa in November/December this year.”

     

  • Olympics: NTTF plans celebration for legend Toriola

    Olympics: NTTF plans celebration for legend Toriola

    • Calls up 20 for World Juniors in South Africa

    To follow the footsteps of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) is planning a befitting celebration for the first African to attend seven Olympic Games, Segun Toriola.

    According to the President of NTTF, Wahid Oshodi, it behooves on the federation to honour Toriola for his giant stride in the sport while there are plans to recommend the former African champion and others for national honours.

    “The NTTF will definitely be celebrating the Legend with a series of activities in Nigeria. His achievements are so inspiring that we must find a way to say thank you to this great talented patriotic Nigerian. The IOC, the ITTF and the ATTF have led the way and we surely will ensure that we give him a befitting award. We are also hopeful that the Ministry of Youth and Sports will join us in this laudable quest. This will be done at a time to fit into his busy schedule.”

    He added: “We shall also be making a fervent case for athletes like Toriola, Funke Oshonaike Bose Kaffo and Babatunde Obisanya  alongside other remarkable athletes outside football and athletics be recognized when national honours are being awarded.”

    Meanwhile, the federation is poised to build on the performance at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games as it has called up 20 players made up of 12 boys and eight girls for this year’s World Junior Championship holding later in the year in Cape Town, South Africa. The camping begins on Monday, August 23 to September 3 at the National Training Centre of Lagos National Stadium.

    Teenage sensations – Abayomi Animasahun and Tosin Oribamise top the list of invited players. Others are Azeez Solanke, Amadi Umeh, Michael Abayomi, Augustine Emmanuel, Jamiu Ayanwale, Ololade Oyenekan, Tobi Falana, Etim Orok, Babafemi Babatunde and Umar Ibrahim made up the boys’ list, while the girls are – Agnes Onoja, Ajoke Ojomu, Alimot Ayinla, Rofiat Jimoh and Sukurat Aiyelabegan.

    The NTTF further said: “On his return to Nigeria from Rio, Toriola will lead a two week training session for the 20 junior players invited to camp for selecting the team that will represent Nigeria at the World Junior Table Tennis Championships holding in Cape Town, South Africa in November/December this year.”

  • Adeniyi leads two others in wrestling medals’ chase

    Adeniyi leads two others in wrestling medals’ chase

    Commonwealth gold medalist, Aminat Adeniyi will lead the duo of Genesis Mercy and Hannah Rueben as Team Nigeria begins their quest for medals in the wrestling event of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil.

    Adeniyi, a double African champion will compete against the world’s best in the freestyle event of the women’s 58kg. She is expected to battle for medal against 19 other wrestlers across the globe.

    Mercy Genesis, who is making her international debut at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games will jostle for laurel in the women’s 48kg against 19 others including former Olympic Games medalist.

    Experienced Reuben,who is making her Olympic Games debut will have her hands full against 17 others in the women’s 69kg of freestyle event.

    Five female and two male wrestlers are expected to compete for Team Nigeria at the Rio Olympic Games with all eyes on Odunayo Adekuoroye, a bronze medalist at the 2015 World Championship and rated as one of favourites to clinch medal in the freestyle event.

    Meanwhile, Cuba’s Mijain Lopez Nunez won his third straight Olympic Games gold medal at the weekend with a 6-0 victory over reigning world champion Turkey’s Riza Kayaalp at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

    With the victory, Lopez becomes the third wrestler in the classic style to win three Olympic Games gold medals after Sweden’s Carl Westergren and Russia’s Alexander Karelin.

    After last year’s 1-0 loss to Kayaalp in the world championships finals, many wrestling fans were expecting a hard-fought struggle, but Lopez sealed his victory in the opening 30 seconds of the gold medal final.

    Lopez snapped Kayaalp down as the champ moved forward at the opening whistle.  With Kayaalp’s balance broken forward, Lopez wrapped up a tight chest-lock from in front and tossed the champ to his back for a sudden 4-0 lead. In the ensuring scramble, Lopez added a step-out point.

    As things got chippy with a frustrated Kayaalp in the second period, Lopez gained another penalty point and appeared to have technical fall within reach with one minute to go, but he chose to ease home with the victory.

    Earlier in the day, Lopez defeated London 2012 silver medalist Estonia’s Heike Nabi, bronze medalist Sweden’s Johan Euren and two-time junior world champion Russia’s Sergey Semenov – all by simple decisions.

  • German star, Brandt wary of U-23 Eagles

    German star, Brandt wary of U-23 Eagles

    After having an easy progress to the last four of the men’s football event of Rio 2016 Olympic Games, German midfielder, Julian Brandt is familiar with the quality of their semi-final opponent- Nigeria and the Bayer Leverkusen admitted that the U-23 Eagles are very strong and fast.

    Brandt, who was part of the team that edged out Nigeria’s Flying Eagles from the last U-20 World Cup, has been instrumental to the fine form of the European team at the Olympic Games with their 4-0 bashing of Portugal still fresh in their memory.

    “They (Nigeria) are positively crazy because they take a big risk,” he told DFB-TV. “I consider Nigeria as offensively strong and very fast,” Brandt said.

    However, U-23 Eagles captain, John Mikel Obi believes the African side is ready for the German machine.

    “Maybe they will be a bit similar to the Swedish or Danish teams we faced. We have to make sure we’re ready. We have to make sure we play well and hopefully we do exactly what [coach Samson Siasia] asks us to do. He’s been absolutely amazing with his tactics and with the way he wants us to play,” Mikel said.

    The two giants will battle out for a place in the final at Arena Corinthians in Sao Paulo.

     

  • Olympics: Nigeria missing as taekwondo event begins

    Olympics: Nigeria missing as taekwondo event begins

    For the first time in the last three editions of the Olympic Games, Team Nigeria will be conspicuously missing from the taekwondo event of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games as 63 countries begin fight for medals.

    Since taekwondo became a medal hauling event at Sydney 2000 Olympic Games in United States, Nigeria has not missed out from competing at the tournament after the trio of Princess Dudu, Chika Chukwumerije and Martins Obiora featured at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games in Greece.

    Nigeria failed to feature in the qualifiers for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games but in 2004, the team presented three athletes – Dudu, Chukwumerije and Obiora for the games but they were knocked in the first round of the games.

    Chukwumerije and Isa Mohammed Adam qualified for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in China with Adam making it to the quarterfinal while Chukwumerije claimed bronze medal.

    Against, it was Chukwumerije and Adam that qualified for the 2012 London Olympic Games with both athletes being edged in the first round.

    But as one of the Africa’s powerhouses in the sport, Nigeria could not win a slot to the Rio Olympic Games in Brazil at the qualifiers held in Morocco and this automatically prevented the team from the Brazil party.

    And when the taekwondo event begins today at the Carioca Arena 3 in Rio, nine African countries will be battling it out with 54 other nations across the world.

    The men’s taekwondo competition will pit a field of legendary fighters against an up-and-coming contingent of hungry young guns as the sport prepares to rock Rio with a “Festival of Fight.” The 2016 Olympic taekwondo competition takes place over four days, from August 17 to August 20, at the Carioca Arena 3. One men’s and one women’s weight category, each containing 16 fighters, will be contested on each day. The four men’s weight categories are: -58kg, -68kg, -80kg and +80kg.

  • Okagbare faces tough hurdle in 200m semis

    Okagbare faces tough hurdle in 200m semis

    • Drawn in same heat with Schippers, Thompson

    Reigning double Commonwealth Games sprint queen Blessing Okagbare will need to run faster than her 22.23 seconds personal best to stand a chance of making the 200m final when the semi-final is run at 2am on Wednesday August 17,2016.

    The seven-time Nigerian 100m queen came in first (22.71s) in her first round heat on Monday, but faces another heartbreak in the semi-final after she was drawn in the same heat as reigning world champion Dafne Schippers of Holland and Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson, who came second behind Schippers in Beijing at the IAAF Worlds last year and only early Sunday morning ran 10.71 seconds to win the 100m gold at the on-going Olympic in Rio De Janeiro,Brazil.

    Also drawn into Okagbare’s first semi-final heat are USA’s Deajah Stevens, who holds a personal season’s best of 22.25 seconds and Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith, who incidentally came second (22.77s) behind Okagbare in the first round heat.

    The Nigerian will be fighting for either the two automatic slots on offer for the final which Schippers and Thompson, who both ducked inside 22 seconds to make the podium in Beijing last year are favoured to get or the two fastest losers’ spots which is open to athletes in all the three semi-final heats.

    In the other semi-final heats,Cote D’Ivoire duo of Muriel Ahoure and Marie-Jose Talou will also strive to make the final.

    Ahoure will be running in the third semi-final while Talou,who came fourth in the 100m final early Sunday morning and set a 22.31 seconds personal best in the first round heat Monday afternoon will be running in the second semi-final.

    Okagbare,it would be recalled failed to qualify for the 100m semi-finals on Saturday and has not run inside 11 seconds so far this year.

    Meanwhile, Nigeria continued her bad run in track and field as the duo of Olu Olamigoke and Tosin Oke failed to qualify for the finals of the triple jump event.

    Olamigoke expectedly failed to make his Olympics debut a memorable one after he could not hop,step and jump beyond 16.10m,85cm short of the 16.95m qualifying standard set for the event.

    Oke on his part did not fulfil expectations after he too could only jump 16.47m to place 16th in his qualifying group. 

    Also out of the Olympics is quatermile barrier runner Miles Ukaoma who failed to hurdle past the first round.

    The USA-based Nigerian came in fifth (49.84s) in the very first heat of the 400m hurdles to wave bye to the Rio Games.

    In the early hours of Tuesday another 400m hurdler, Ogoegbunam Amaka will attempt to see if she could qualify for the semi-final in her first appearance at the Games and possibly go a step further by equalling national record holder,Ajoke Muizat Odumosu’s final placing four years ago in London.

    Also bidding to make her debut an unforgetable one is discus thrower Chinwe Okoro who will be aiming to improve the 61.58m national record she set early this year to 62m, the qualfying standard set by the IAAF for the event.

  • Nigeria’s weightlifter Usman crashes out of Olympics

    Nigeria’s weightlifter Usman crashes out of Olympics

    Maryam Usman’s selection as the only weightlifter to represent Nigeria at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games was embroiled in controversy and her performance at the weekend in Rio has confirmed the reservation about the decision by the Nigeria Weightlifting Federation (NWF) to choose her ahead of youthful Oluwatoyin Adesanmi.

    Competing in the women’s +75kg, Usman was nowhere the medal zone as she finished eight (last) in Group B of the preliminary round.

    In the snatch event, she only managed to lift 115kg and in her two attempt to lift 120kg failed while in the clean and jerk, she lifted 145kg and 150kg, but her efforts to lift 152kg failed as she managed an overall lift of 265kg.

    In Rio, it was China’s Meng Suping with an overall lift of 307kg that claimed the gold medal in the women’s +75kg, while the silver and medals were claimed by North Korea’s Kim Kuk Hyang and United States’ Robles Sarah Elizabeth with 306kg and 286kg respectively.

    Prior to the Rio Olympic Games, findings by NationSport showed that Adesanmi is Nigeria’s best weightlifter in the world who stands a better chance of making it to the podium in Brazil.

    From the results obtained at the 2015 World Championship in United States, Usman finished 15 overall in the women’s +75kg with a cumulative lift of 260 compared to 333 lifted by Russia’s Tatiana Kashirina while Adesanmi with a cumulative lift of 218 to the best cumulative of 259 lifted by China’s Wei Deng.

  • ‘I’m the proudest person at 2016 Olympics’

    ‘I’m the proudest person at 2016 Olympics’

    An excited President of Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF), Wahid Oshodi is indeed pleased with the performance of the team at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

    He however, said that with more support table tennis has the wherewithal to win medal for Nigeria at the multi-sports competition.

    “I am quite pleased with the players. They have shown commitment and have strived to give their best. Everybody won a match and got into the main draw of the tournament and at this level that is not an easy task. They have all come together and supported each other even when support seemed to be lacking,” he said.

    The ITTF Nomination member added: “With Aruna Quadri’s excellent performance in reaching the quarterfinal and Segun Toriola getting to the 2nd round, I must confess that I am quite elated and proud of this team. They have done the country proud. This is by far the best performance by a table tennis team outside Asia and Europe ever and must be celebrated. If you also look at the quality of players that we defeated then one must take his hat off to the players. It is a phenomenal performance taking all the circumstances of our preparation into consideration.”

    He however, called for more support for the sport: “There is need for more exposure for our other players and coaches while more funding, increased and better quality coaching. We need to have at least eight male and female players consistently playing on the senior and junior professional tours. This will serve as an inspiration for the young ones coming behind especially when they see that they can build a financially rewarding career as people like Toriola and Oshonaike have done. We need to even work harder especially in the female category so we can sustain our achievements.

    I am fully committed to helping our players get to the top and really hope we can get the right support from Government and the organized private sector such as the Banks, Telecoms and Oil companies and our big Industrialists: this category of organizations need to focus a lot more on helping our home grown sports stars develop instead of chasing after the big earning premiership football stars.”