The Minister of Sports and Chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Bolaji Abdullahi has assured Nigerians that talents discovered at the end of the ongoing 1st National Youth Games (NYG) will be groomed from one level to the other until they reach their optimal or High Performance level where they will consequently serve as a pool where athletes can be drawn to represent the country at international tournaments.
The minister stated this Monday while visiting the sporting venues of the NYG for an on-the spot assessment of the games.
This is against the backdrop of the encouragement and support received from Dr. Goodluck Jonathan to organize this type of games that will bring together thousands of our budding youths from different parts of the country to participate and compete against one another.
The first point of call was the Velodrome at package A of the Abuja national stadium where he joined several other spectators to watch the Boxing event; the match between Duniya Hammed of Kastina State and Bulius Enoch of the FCT in the 52-54kg weight category.
The next point of call was the Weight-lifting gymnasium where he watched the Para-power lifters doing their preliminaries.
The Minister commended President Goodluck Jonathan for his commitment to grassroots sports development part of which he said gave birth to the national youth games.
Speaking on the issue of screening, the minister noted that issues bothering on age limit will arise, adding that the most important thing however is to ensure that any athlete competing in the competition is actually under 17, “if we have any athlete above this age bracket competing, no matter how good the athlete is in the games then the purpose of the games would have been defeated”.
He further said that the screening exercise is to check the influx of overage athletes stressing that at any point of competing that once there is any reasonable ground to doubt the age of an athlete that athlete will automatically be disqualified.
According to a statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the Minister, Taye Akinyemi, the Commission will continue to be strict on the issue of screening.
He also quoted the minister as saying that the NSC is building a stock of athletes that would eventually form the bulk of the nation’s pool of athletes for international competitions.
