By Ben Efe

Former Nigerian international athlete, Mbanefo Akpom has called for an early long term preparation for the 2024 Olympics in Paris, France, and the next Games 2028 in Los Angeles, USA.

He expressed pain over by the seeming lack of progress since the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where Nigeria won a total of three individual medals and a women 4x400m relay silver.

Akpom stressed that the country had fallen behind in athletics development and it was time now to do all the right things to avoid further embarrassment of the Nation.

California USA-based Akpom disclosed that several ex-international athletes are concerned about the retrogressive nature of Nigerian athletics and some of them may be taking it upon themselves to run programmes that could produce athletes for the two Olympics games up ahead.

READ ALSO: Nigeria: Shameful Tokyo 2020 Olympics performance

“Some of us based in the USA were not happy with what we saw in Tokyo 2020,” said Akpom who also runs a sports equipment manufacturing company— MB Sports.

“How can a big country like Nigeria be struggling to win medals at the Olympics, when you have a small country like Jamaica, that is not even to the size of Ogun State, dominating athletics?

“I have had some of my Jamaican friends calling me up to express their disgust about what is happening to Nigerian track and field.

“The way forward is that we must stop the fire-brigade approach. How do you expect to get results when you start preparations the day after your national trials?

“We must begin to run grassroots and school sports programmes right away; we must upgrade our coaches and our administration must sit up and make the right moves that will enhance speedy development.

“It must be the interest of the athletes and athletics first and not personal interest like we have been doing over the years,” he fumed.

He added that the sports ministry should create a conducive environment to allow individuals to run sports academies that will be focused on producing the athletes and also educating them.

“If we can have a head start, we can achieve results in Paris and the next Olympics.

“The athletics talents are there in abundance, but we must do what other countries are doing to bring up their world class athletes.”

Vanguard News Nigeria