The Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) is optimistic that Nigeria’s athletes to the forthcoming World Athletics Championships and Commonwealth Games will put up superlative performances.
The federation’s Technical Director, Samuel Onikeku, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Benin that their optimism came from the milestones achieved during the trials for the two international events at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin last weekend.
“The trials have gone well, and we have seen some superlative performances, especially in the 100 metres for women (11.03 seconds) and 100m for men (9.99 secs).
“It has been a long time, since 2003, that we had such a time in the men’s 100m. Nobody has run nine seconds on our shores. This means the competition went well.
“We are excited and happy about this. The trials have really gone well,” Onikeku said.
He added that Team Nigeria also did well with the 4x100m men. “We hit the standard and we hope nobody will be able to upstage us from the qualification level we are now.”
He further disclosed that the Nigerian contingent would soon be heading to the U.S. to camp ahead of the world championships in Oregon in July.
“We are ready and our plan is to move to the US quickly to go and camp before the world championships will start,” he said.