The Sun News On-line

Africa’s king of sprint, Olusoji Fasuba, stunned the world in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last Thursday at the African Athletics Championship, and the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) President, Violet Odogwu-Nwajei, said that no Jupiter would stop the Nigerian from winning medal at the Beijing Olympic Games in August.

“With a time of 10.10sec, Fasuba has shown that he’s within the medals’ range at the Olympics,” Odogwu-Nwajei began. “That time also confirmed him as one of the five fastest men on earth.

“That’s good news for Nigeria and I can say without any fear that he will win a medal in Beijing, China in August. What I cannot boast of is the colour of the medal. It may be gold, silver or bronze.”

Recently, the Nigerian shocked the world at the Indoor Games in Valencia, where he dusted even the acclaimed best in the 60m dash to win the race in a grand style. Moreover, just before the ovation that greeted the Valencia feat petered, Fasuba shoved aside the best in Africa and won the African Championship in Ethiopia.

Could it be the magic of the training grant of $30,000 that was promised the elite athletes by the National Sports Commission (NSC), (part of which has been paid), that is moving the sprinter to achieve more? And Odogwu-Nwajei said: “It’s too early to start counting the chicken, insisting that the grant would go a long way in motivating the athletes to give their best for the country.”

May 10 this year will mark exactly three years the present AFN Board got into office, and Odogwu-Nwajei was waxing lyrical that only an Olympic gold from Fasuba would be the icing on her cake.
Odogwu-Nwajei, the first Nigerian and African woman to win an Olympic silver medal in long jump, also thumped her cheat and declared that she had within the space of three years done something good for Nigerian athletics. She maintained that she has the confidence that Fasuba, who she described as her son, would fulfill his promise of doing Nigeria proud at the Beijing Games.

“Fasuba is my son. When he gives you a promise, he fulfils it,” she said. “I have an implicit confidence that he will do Nigeria proud by winning an Olympic gold in Beijing. He still has more than three months to prepare and his outing in Addis Ababa is morale boosting.
“We have tried to bring our athletes closer to the AFN. Silently, we have been supporting them to get the best out of the sport. We have good rapport with them and we have both the African and world champion in Fasuba.

“When I came on board as the AFN president, things were bad, but we tried to correct the anomalies we met on ground, and positively, our efforts are beginning to yield good results.
“I can beat my chest now and say that I have done something good, and we have to sustain it by producing a gold medallist at the Olympics in Beijing.”

Odogwu-Nwajei, who won bronze in long jump in Kingston, Jamaica in 1966 for Nigeria, stated that her greatest desire, while still at the helm of affairs, would be to see Nigeria producing a long jumper that will take over from the 1996 Atlanta golden girl, Chioma Ajunwa.
With nostalgia, she said: “As a jumper who competed for 17 consecutive years, when I look at the present crop of jumpers, what I normally think about is the distance I jumped then and what they are jumping now. I have not seen much improvement between then and now. We ought to have done better.

“Chioma’s feat in Atlanta was good and we need another jumper to exceed her 7m feat.
“Our track athletes are doing very well. We have produced an African and a world champion in Fasuba. We also have good prospects in the likes of Osayemi, Franca Idoko and others.
“However, we still need to do a lot of work in the area of jumps, and I have identified the problem. I told the coaches that we need a very good coach who understands the technicalities involved in jumping, from the way one leaps to the way one landings.

“It took my coach, Awotura Eleyea two years then to correct my jumps, and it paid off at the long run. Barring the injury I had in Mexico when I tripped and twisted my ankle, I would have won gold in the long jump.
“I have no regrets, that’s why I still identify myself with athletics till date. I was an all-rounder in athletics during my competitive years.
“Everybody cannot be a coach, but I would not hesitate to pave way for the athletes as they prepare for the Olympics. I was once an athlete like them and I understand perfectly what they go through while in training.

“We’re keeping tabs on our athletes, that’s why we know who is where and what they do. In a week’s time, they’ll be in Calabar. If we don’t monitor them, we will not know their current forms and standards,” she said.

After the Beijing Olympics, the NSC will conduct a fresh election in all the sporting associations to usher in new boards to lead the various sporting bodies, and Odogwu-Nwajei is hoping to serve another term as AFN boss.