Weightlifting ’ll Spin Medals At Maputo Games

 Chimdi Ejiogu is the president of Nigeria Weightlifting Federation. He spoke with Seun Bisuga in Port Harcourt, about the ongoing National Sports Festival.

What is the next step for the athletes that have performed well at the National Sports Festival this year?

One thing we will do after the Games is to find out the number of athletes, their ages and how they are progressing so that we know the trainable ones and how to build them up. In every international game, it is always weightlifting that takes us up on the medal table. Here in Port Harcourt, one of the lifters, Chineye Fidelis of Akwa Ibom, broke the African record in weightlifting in 53kg category. If this can happen at the local level, it shows that with more training we can spring more surprises at the international level.

What is the federation doing to help the athletes?

For us as a federation, our job is to plan a developmental scheme for the athletes who have made outstanding marks. The All Africa Games beckons and we hope weightlifting is included in the Games. For instance, in Chineye’s category, she can win at world level with this performance. At the Commonwealth Games in India, Nigeria emerged first in weightlifting despite not competing in the last 16 years. If we have more athletes competing in the weightlifting at the Olympics, it’s a plus for Nigeria as this will guarantee more medals. We have already mapped out a plan to succeed.

How many competitions do the athletes feature in every season?

We can have tourneys every month, but we don’t have enough sponsorship. Everybody wants to put money in football and it is not doing us good. In the Olympic Games. Football has one medal but weightlifting has over 20 medals that we can compete for. We have been trying to improve on getting sponsorships; we have only managed to be here by the assistance of the National Sports Commission, NSC. Some marketers will tell you bluntly that people don’t watch weightlifting. But if they sponsor weightlifting at the Olympic Games their brand will enjoy a lot of popularity

Do our facilities in the country match international standard?

Facilities are one of the things we desire in this federation. We have not gone below minimum, but we need more modern facilities to develop our athletes. As we go to camp, we are going to purchase the same facilities that will be used at the Olympics so that our athletes can familiarise themselves with them so that it won’t be like the situation in India when our athletes were seeing the equipment for the first time; but they still won medals.

How do you see the standard in the ongoing National Sports Festival in Port Harcourt?

Weightlifting had issues at the beginning, but after some days everyone made sure things worked out. We are patriotic Nigerians, we added extra time and manpower and everything has gone so well.