*Says she is bent on tarnishing Nigeria’s image
President of the Cycling Federation of Nigeria, CFN, Engr. Giadomenico Massari has explained while Nigeria’s leading female cyclist, Ese Ukpeseraye was absent from the World Championship in Zurich, Switzerland recently.
The CFN president was reacting to claims by Ukpeseraye on social media that she couldn’t make the World Championship nor attend the African Championship in Kenya because her travel arrangements were bungled.
However, explaining the circumstances to Sports Vanguard yesterday, Engr. Massari said that rather than present the facts the way they are, Ukpeseraye has continued “to tarnish the image of the Federation and Nigeria at large”.
He added that he personally called her at the end of September to inform her of her participation at the African championship in Kenya but she replied she wasn’t going because “she was highly annoyed that in spite being the African champion and having participated to the Olympic she has not been sent to the World Road Championship in Zurich”.
Though the Delta-born cyclist claimed that unranked cyclists from Benin, Uganda and Rwanda attended the Zurich Championship, the CFN president who has been shouldering Ukpeseraye’s travelling expenses for most Championships as money hardly comes from the Sports Development ministry said his explanation to the cyclist that the Championships was not for her category of riders fell on def ears.
“I tried to explain to her that the Zurich Championship was a special category called mixed relay introduced by UCI where countries can send athletes without scores and rankings to participate but she didn’t believe me”, Engr. Massari said.
On the Kenyan Championship, he said after accepting to attend, Ukpeseraye told the federation’s Italian agent the athlete gave the CFN conditions and promised to call the president but she never did, adding that, “the closeness of the championship, the visa issue and mostly the financial implications ( the cost of the tickets were extremely high) we had to give up the trip”.
He recalled how in the past he had spent his personal money for her “to attend an interview for the French Visa in Abuja and despite purchasing a return flight ticket to Abuja and Ghana,” but he lost the money because she refused to attend the interview and ticket were not refundable.
He described Ukpeseraye as “very ungrateful” despite all the things that have been done for her to project her to the level she is presently.
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