Experienced long distance coach, Stephen Nuhu has revealed his admiration for the Minsiter of youths and sports development, Sunday Dare over his proposed plans to restructuring and development of long distance marathon, athletes welfare, ratification of set records, while tasking coaches to formulate sustainable plans for the gigantic program.
Initially, the long term deep worries then was the unavailability to secure sponsorships for the training of the distance runners towards qualification for Tokyo Olympics and the unfortunate non- ratification of numerous records that were set in the distance running event from 2012 till date, how long distance runners were being skipped each time either track and field, athletes were invited to camp towards international championships.
In a recent phone call chat with Nuhu, he cited his pleasure over the call made by the Minsiter with him following series of failed efforts to reach him: “My intention is to see the minister and the challenge was how to see him, but am glad with the recent contact and his statements has shown that he has come to restore all lost glory at the global sporting chart”, he excitedly explained.
“The most exciting to me was the personal call made by the honourable minister inviting all middle and long distance coaches to a meeting, although we have met twice with him, he has announced the establishment of Manbiller as the centres of excellence on the development of middle and long distance race in Nigeria.”
“He has asked the coach to develop a sustainable plan for the gigantic program to comence soonest and on the issue of non ratification of records set by athletes, he has also instructed that such records be rectified with world athletic regulations and also included distance runners on the palliatives he gave athletes to cushion the effect by the scorch of the COVID-19 pandemic”
“With all this, he has already addressed all our problems and beyond, only God will bless him and on our path, we will reciprocate by God’s grace,” Nuhu concluded.
