By Our Correspondent

Team Nigeria may participate in 11 sporting ever at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, Bestchoicesports.com.ng can report

Without football, since both men and female national teams failed to qualify for the games in the Asian country, the ministry of youth and Sports development has expressed it’s resolve to ensure that Team Nigeria will take part in at least 11 sports in Japan.

The Ministry of Youth and Sports Development has taken steps to further consolidate the chances of athletes and teams at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics by prioritizing 11 sports and six para sports for Nigeria’s qualifying pathway to the Games.

A Ministerial Advisory Committee on Tokyo 2020 Games (MACT), which set this priority, also recommended an early start to pre-games camping towards ensuring maximum success.

The Ministerial Advisory Committee on Tokyo 2020 Games, chaired by the Permanent Secretary, Oulsola Adesola, proposed 120 days of camping as it agreed to fast track the process of securing the services of highly skilled technical personnel to complement local coaches.

Mr. Adesola revealed that “The recommendations of the inaugural meeting of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Tokyo 2020 Games (MACT 2020 held on Wednesday, December 9, 2019 was submitted and approved by the Honourable Minister of Youth & Sports Development for implementation.  Some of the specific recommendations approved are:-

i) That the under listed 11 Sports for the Olympic and 5 Sports for the Paralympic have been prioritized for the qualifying pathway: 

1) Athletics 7) Rowing 1. Para Athletics

2) Badminton 8) Table Tennis 2. Para Canoeing 

3) Basketball 9) Taekwondo 3. Para Powerlifting 

4) Boxing 10) Weightlifting 4. Para Rowing 

5) Canoeing 11) Wrestling 5. Para Table Tennis

6) Gymnastics

ii) That the final list of qualified athletes and sports would be confirmed after the completion of the two year qualification tournaments cycle in June 2020;

iii) Acknowledged the qualification of the athletes listed below as at December 4, 2019:

OLYMPIC GAMES

    a)  Athletics:

1. Ese Brume (Women’s Long Jump) F
2. Amusan Tobi (Women’s 100m Hurdles) F
3. Blessing Okagbare (100m/200m) F
4. Divine Oduduru (100m) M
5. Raymond Okevwo (100m) M
6. Usheorise Itshekiri (100m) M
7. Chukwuebuka Enekwechi (Shot Put) M
8. Emmanuel Bamidele (400m) M b) Basketball 
9. Male Team (D’ Tigers) M

c) Canoeing

        1.  Bello Ayomide (Women’s Canoe Kayak) F

d) Rowing

1. Toko Esther (Women’s Single Sculls) F

e) Wrestling:

1. Adekuoroye Odunayo (57kg WW) F

PARALYMPIC GAMES

a) Powerlifting

    Female                  Male

1. Omolayo Bose 1. Ibrahim Abdulaziz
2. Orji Precious 2. Dauda Ibrahim
3. Tijani Latifat 3. Kehinde Paul
4. Oluwafemiayo Folasade 4. Innocent Nnamdi
5. Okpala Pauline 5. Roland Ezuruike
6. Ibrahim Mujinat 6. Yakubu Adesokan
7. Obiji Lovelyn
8. Ejike Lucy

b) Para Rowing

1. Ijeoma Kingsley (Men’s Singles Sculls) M”

The Committee has meanwhile ruled that no Nigerian Athletes would feature in the Games with Wild Card qualification status.

This development comes as the ministry will this week launch its Adopt an Athlete Campaign, which will raise direct funds for each athlete or team for training, support for trials, coaching, medicals, insurance and others.