Second vice-president of the Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Akuchukwu Aghazu has disclosed that the country’s athletes are too busy at their pre-Commonwealth Games camp in Aberdeen, Scotland and they cannot mingle with their compatriots in the community.
Sports247 reports that Team Nigeria’s athletes are in the last stage of preparations at Aberdeen Sports Village (ASV), which Aghazu said has everything they need for training, leisure, hospitality and relaxation, thereby ruling out any need to move round the community and meet their compatriots.
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However, Aghazu also added that the officials have a plan to interact formally with the Nigerian community before leaving Aberdeen, as the decision to locate the pre-competition base in the north-east Scottish city was not only becuase of the top-notch facilities avaialable there, but also to draw support from compatriots.
She mentioned how statistics show that Aberdeen has the largest gathering of Nigerians in Scotland – with approximately 5,600 residents making up 2.5% of the city’s population – hence an ancestral connection that the contingent could get from their compatrriots in their neighbourhood.
Nonetheless, despite admitting the need to fratenise with Nigerians in the city, Aghazu insists that the priority for the athletes is to stay focused and train well ahead of the 2026 Commoweatlth Games, where the contingent will compete in judo, boxing, weightlifting, para-powerlifting, athletics, 3×3 basketball and swimming.
Aghazu then expressed optimism that the preparation camp in Aberdeen will help Team Nigeria move higher than its present ninth position on the historic table of the Commonwealth Games, with the standing boosted by 34 medals that were won by the country at Birmingham 2022.
The AFN’s second VP reasoned further that maintaining total concentrationn in camp will help the Nigerian athletes excel during their events in Glasgow, and told BBC Scotland: “God willing and blessed in our efforts, we are going to top it by winning a lot of gold. Of course, we are going to top it, you’ve seen what we are doing in practice?
“We have been hearing that there are a lot of Nigerians around here but, because (we) are so secluded, we haven’t had the opportunity to go and mingle. We planned it like that, so that they can focus on their training. But we hope, before we leave, that we will have the opportunity to engage with them.”
