By Eric Olusesan
The minister of youth and sports development, Mr Sunday Dare, has congratulated Team Nigeria for her remarkable performance at the just concluded World Athletics U20 Championships in Nairobi, Kenya.
Nigeria achieved her best ever showing at the Championships with a total of 4 gold and 3 Bronze medals. She also finished in 3rd place on the medals table behind the hosts Kenya and Finland. About 958 athletes from 116 countries participated in 45 events at the Championships.
Dare said: “These young Team Nigeria athletes deserve our respect for representing this country so well. We congratulate them on their record breaking performance in Nairobi, Kenya. Finishing in 3rd place on the medals table out of the 114 countries that participated in the Championships is no mean feat. It is a commendable achievement that places Nigeria on the world map of world athletics and signposts a new trajectory for the sport in Nigeria.
“We will keep these young heroes and heroines, monitor, support, train and invest in them. We will design a program for them and have them prepared for more victories. We have started building a new and younger generation of Nigerian athletes that will surely do us proud. There is so much hope for the future,” he added.
Dare also thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for his continuous support for sports development in Nigeria.
“President Muhammadu Buhari has continuously supported our sports development programmes anytime we present them to him. He has helped in creating a very conducive environment for us to thrive and what has happened in Nairobi, Kenya are proofs of this support,” Dare concluded.
