Former national 100 metres champion, Mary Onyali, has likened 55 years of sports in Nigeria to a sleeping giant that needs to wake up and start winning again.
Onyali, who was a guest on the Friday edition of Channels Television’s ‘Sports This Morning’ reiterated the importance of investing in talent discovery and development through productive school sports programmes.
The Atlanta 1996 Olympics bronze medallist explained that the athletics did well in the 80s and 90s because the country gave good attention to home-grown talents and infrastructure development.
Meanwhile, 1980 African Nations’ Cup winner, Segun Odegbami, also believes football in Nigeria has performed below its potentials in the 55 years of Nigeria’s existence.
Odegbami credited the success of the game in the 80s to result-oriented grassroots development programmes.
The ex-international explained that the league was also good and most of the talents in the country emerged from the academicals which gave their career a longer lifespan.
Both Nigerian sport legends agreed that Nigeria would only regain its lost glory by reinvesting in grassroots development and schools sports.