By John Egbokhan
No fewer than 1176 swimmers are expected to participate at the African Junior Swimming Championships holding between November 24 and December 7 at the Abuja National Stadium.

Olatokunbo Thomas,

Disclosing this yesterday at the corporate headquarters of Vanguard Media Limited, the Honourary Life President of the Nigeria Swimming Federation (NSF), Olatokunbo Thomas, said that 52 African countries would be sending out two swimmers to feature in each event at the biggest age-grade competition to unearth the next generation of Africa’s swimming stars.

Swimming, unarguably, is the number one Olympic sport because it has the highest numbers of gold medals on offer. It is taken for granted that the country which wins the most gold medals in swimming almost certainly ends up topping the entire medals table at the end of the Olympic Games.

Thomas stressed that the groundwork to attain Olympian heights must begin from the junior level, a point that hosting the African Junior Championships in Abuja provides for Nigeria as she starts planning for the future.

Speaking on the continental project, which Nigeria was awarded the hosting rights during the Congress of the African Swimming Confederation (CANA) in 2009, Thomas, who is also the Vice-President of CANA, said that an estimated sum of N300m was required to fund the massive project, which if not properly executed, was capable of tarnishing the image of Nigeria.

“In 2009 when we went to elect new members of CANA at the Congress, Nigeria consented to host the Africa Junior Championships. 52 countries are to participate and we expect about 1176 swimmers, 11 technical committee members, 15 jury panel members, 126 officials and 75 local officials to cater for during the period of the Championships.

“This is a massive project and we need the support of all well-meaning companies to support us in making it a successful event. Some people were not happy that we got the hosting rights and want us to fail but Nigeria is a great country with great people, who would always rise to the big occasion”, said Thomas, who chairs the committee to raise funds for the hosting of the Championships.

He said that government has promised to renovate the swimming complex where the Championships would hold, as part of its contributions towards the successful hosting of the event in Abuja.

“We held a meeting with the Director-General of the National Sports Commission, Patrick Ekeji, who said that government does not have fund for this project but that they would try to renovate the venue as part of their contributions to the Championships.

“As things are now, we are counting on companies to bail us out because with this event, we would have started preparing our young swimmers to take over from the elites, who are nearing the twilight. It is important that we plan for the future with a successful hosting of the Junior Championships.

The exposure it offers our athletes to become stars tomorrow is unlimited”, said Thomas, who apart from being a board member of FINA, the world governing body for swimming also chairs the Legal Commission of FINA.