Team Nigeria Paralympians Land in Japan, Set to Wipe Memories of Tokyo 2020
Duro Ikhazuagbe
With less than a week to the commencement of the 2020 Paralympic Games, Team Nigeria athletes have arrived in Kisarazu, Japan, the venue of their training camp before departing for Tokyo.
Nigeria is to participate in four events at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo. The events include; Powerlifting, Para-Athletics, Para-Table Tennis and Para Rowing.
Speaking ahead of the Games, Captain of Team Nigeria Paralympians, Lucy Ejike assured Nigerians yesterday that they were not going to disappoint in Tokyo.
“We have been training seriously to make sure we meet up with the standard we set at previous Games. Everything is going on well. We are confident we will bring glory to Nigeria.”
She further pledged that Nigeria was going the Games to improve on the previous world records set in some of the events.
“We have world records set by Nigerians. We are hoping to maintain these records and even create new ones,” Ejike further assured Nigerians.
Also speaking on the same level of optimism, Para Power-lifter, Nnamdi Innocent, expressed appreciation to the Sports Minister, Chief Sunday Dare for his motivation for the team.
“We are grateful to the Minister for his support and encouragement. What he did for us during the lockdown will motivate us to excel in Tokyo. We have many world records and our target is to go there and make Nigeria proud,” he corroborated Ejike’s earlier assertion on improving on exixting world records held by Nigerians.
The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games will be Nigeria’s 8th consecutive appearance since her debut at the inaugural edition at Barcelona Paralympic Games in 1992.
Nigeria had her most successful outing at the Paralympic Games in Rio 2016, finishing as Africa’s best team and 17th overall in the world on the medals table with 8 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze medals.
Nigeria returned from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games with a silver in wrestling and a bronze medal won in the long jump.
Blessing Oborududu was the winner of the women’s freestyle wrestling silver while Ese Brume picked the bronze in the women’s long jump event.
