BY KINGSLEY OMONOBI Abuja
The Nigerian Navy has expressed its readiness to collaborate with the Nigeria Olympics Committee (NOC) in grooming the country’s athletes through sponsorship of training to ensure optimum performance during the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil.

Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Admiral Usman Jibrin said the ‘One-Service-One-Medal’ (OSOM) project driven by NOC would be a better platform to win more medals at the competition during the games.

Making the disclosure this when he received the delegation of NOC led by its President, Engr. Sani Ndanusa, at Naval Headquarters in Abuja, the CNS recalled that the first medal to be recorded in Olympics game by the country was by the Naval personnel in 1964, adding that the Navy therefore has every reason to associate with the committee to ensure optimum performance at the competition.

Jibrin noted that the service would not pay lip service to the support they had promised to give to the committee, mentioning swimming as one of the areas they have comparative advantage.

“We will start where we have comparative advantage. We will not pay lip service to our support; we will start by supporting swimming competition. We must develop competitive attitude to swimming competition,” he said.

Earlier, Engr. Sani Ndanusa explained that the abysmal performance of Nigeria contingent at the 2012 Olympics in London forced the committee to solicit support of military and Para-military services to ensure optimum performance during the games.

He maintained that President Goodluck Jonathan had expressed dissatisfaction during the 2012 Olympics in London, where Nigeria in spite of her population could not win a medal.

Ndanusa further explained that the committee had put in place OSOM game, coming up in two months time to prepare the country ahead of the game in 2016, calling on CNS to support the game.