African Junior Athletics Championship: We came to Zambia to garner necessary exposure AFN Technical Director says

Tima Godbless

By Rasheed Adewuyi

Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) technical director, Samuel Onikeku says junior Athletes came for the competition in Zambia to garner necessary exposure, describing the outing of the Nigerian team to the Confederation of African Athletics in Ndola, as a rewarding experience.

He further emphasizes that the Athletes were in the competition for exposure but had to perform beyond expectations despite difficulties they experienced while coming to Zambia.

“Majority of them are travelling for the first time. All those that have competed have won medals, and the middle, and long distance athletes we brought have gathered enough exposure,” Onikeku says.

He added that winning medals was not the priority of the federation, but the priority was to expose the junior athletes to many competitions since that is where the future lies.

“This is a youth competition is not all about winning but giving them the necessary exposure for the future. It’s purely developmental at this stage. Winning medals is just an additional bonus,” he says.

Meanwhile, the juniors AthIetes have won 7 gold medals and are expecting more as the Championships draws to a close, and according to Onikeku, the athletes, despite all the difficulties they went through on their way to Zambia, have put up an excellent performance.

In some of the events concluded Tuesday, Faith Okwose running in the U-18 category, clinched the 200m gold to win a sprint double. She had won the 100m with 11.53 seconds, and ran a personal best of 23.31 seconds while winning the 200m event.

Justina Eyakpobeyan picked the bronze by coming in at the 23.60 secs mark.