By Ben Efe

Athletics Federation of Nigeria technical director, Omatsheye Nesiama has said that there would be no reviewing of the standards set for athletes in the golden league series.

There were grumbles by the athletes after last week’s first leg of the golden league in Sagamu, Ogun State. They argued that the World Championships A standards set by the AFN was too high and it will take them an effort to achieve the necessary scoring that will qualify them for financial rewards.

File photo: Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce crosses the finish line first ahead of others in the women’s 100m final on august 4 in london. AFP PHOTO

But Nesiama, a Nigeria Navy Commodore, stated that the athletes were only concerned about the money they want to win and not improving on their performances.

“We are not lowering any standards. We want our athletes to work hard and achieve world class performances.

“It is not enough for them to come to the golden league to record low performances and go away with the prize money. We don’t have money to throw away, rather we will put it into running junior camps.

“We set the standards as part of our Rio 2016 project. We can’t have athletes running poor times when we want to go and compete with the rest of the world.

“For the athletes, it is about the money but for the AFN we want high performances. Secondary schools athletes are running 10.5 and here we have our seniors running the same time this is not acceptable,” said Commodore Nesiama.

Long jumper Stanley Gbagbeke who leaped 7.79m in Sagamu stated that the AFN was right in setting the standards.

“ I don’t think it has to do with the standard. It’s about them not getting any money. One cannot blame the federation for what is going on though. The low standard of our athletes is the major cause for this. You can’t be spending money when the results are not coming. Any serious athlete should be able to get the standard. Any athlete that refuses to go to Benin is not helping him or herself. They are not competing for Nigeria but for themselves.

The standard is very low and if they cannot get it, that means, nothing is expected of them this season,” said Gbagbeke who is chasing Yusuf Alli’s 8.27m national record.