The aftermath of the 2022 Commonwealth Games held in the UK has sparked conversations as team Nigeria put up her best performance ever with all the conversations are geared towards the lack of male athletes to win gold medals for the country.
With forty-three countries appearing on the medal table, Nigeria finished 7th overall and the first African country on the table with 35 medals in total split into 12 Gold medals, 9 Silver and 14 Bronze with all the gold medals coming from female athletes and the male only picking up majorly bronze medals and a few silver.
“A lot of our athletes, despite them being outside, they were groomed locally by our coaches and that’s why you see that many of them are doing so very well,” coach Femi told Sports247.
“The reason why the girls are doing better is because it’s more competitive for the men. For instance, If there’s going to be 20 heats for men, you will see only about 6 for women and it’s easier for them to make a top finish,” he added.
“Also, coaches need to understand that men require more coaching with demonstrations while women can get it by just speaking, we also need to double the training given to men compared to our ladies and I know we would start seeing changes in competitions soon,” he said.
Coach Femi also stated that he’s got many young athletes in his academy who he feels will take the world by storm in the coming years despite majority of them being teenagers.
“I’ve got a lot of them and I did so very young. The average age of my athletes is 16 years and many have been with me for 2 years. I’ve seen some good signs and some 17 and 18 year olds are running the sub 11 already in the sprints even as many of them are the best athletes already in their secondary schools,” he stated.
