TAIWO ADELU
The Minister of Youth and Sports, Barrister Solomon Dalung has charged Nigeria’s budding athletes to emulate the trio of table tennis stars Segun Toriola, Aruna Quadri and Funke Oshonaike following their feat at the just concluded ITTF Africa Senior Championship in Agadir, Morocco.
Oshonaike reclaimed her African women’s singles title at the Championships 24 years after she first won it while the duo of Aruna Quadri and Segun Toriola conquered Egypt to hold on to the the men’s doubles.
Dalung said the ability of players like Toriola and 41 year old Oshinaike to still remain competitive at the continental stage has proven again that an athlete can stay relevant for a very long time if disciplined.
He said Oshinaike’s performance in the competition where she won the mixed doubles silver alongside Segun Toriola and a gold medal in the women singles is a pointer to the fact that “impossible is nothing with the right levels of preparation, mental strength and the desire to win.”
On Quadri, Dalung was full of praises for the world number 31 as he commended him for sustaining the winning tempo after the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
Aware of his inability to cart home the coveted men singles trophy after narrowly losing to Egypt’s Omar Assar, Dalung said, “In sports, you win some and you lose some” as he encouraged him to quickly dust himself from the defeat and bounce back stronger and better.
Meanwhile, the Honorable Minister has enjoined other federations to emulate the recent self sufficient stance of the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation under Waheed Enitan Oshodi following the Ministry of Youth and Sports’ decision not to invest in elite sports development any longer.
Dalung urged all federations to have a vibrant marketing department saddled with sourcing for funds to run its day to day activities, while the government will continue to create the enabling environment for sports to thrive and channel its energy towards grassroots sports development.
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