The Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN) Tuesday withdrew
Team Nigeria ’s
men’s 4x400m squad from this year’s Olympiad in London .
President of the AFN, Chief Solomon Ogba said in a statement
that the withdrawal followed the none qualification of Nigeria
for the event.
“When we listed our team for the Games on Monday afternoon,
we were hoping that our men’s 4x400m relay squad will be among the final 16
countries. But following the list released yesterday by the IAAF, we are
therefore withdrawing the 4x400m from our original team to the London Games,”
observed the statement from the AFN president.
At the briefing on Monday at Sports
City
The relay quartet of Isah Saliu, Abiola Onakoya, Amaechi
Morton and Saul Weigopwa ran the race of their lives on the final day of the
African Championships in Port Novo to claim the men’s 4x400m gold. Nigerian
captain, Weigopwa out ran Botswana ’s
last leg on the curve of the home stretch to hit the finish line in 3.02: 39
secs. Botswana
got disqualified for South Africa
(3.04.12secs) to profit while the bronze went to Kenya
(3.04.21).
“We were hoping that the 3.02 was good enough to see Nigeria
in the last 16 position. We knew that IAAF uses the aggregate margin of each
countries two best times to correlate those to make the final cut of 16 team
but it is quite unfortunate that we could not pull through,” stressed Chief
Ogba who remains positive of Team Nigeria’s good outing at the London Games.
Meanwhile, the National Sports Commission (NSC) will on
Thursday handover the ``Team Nigeria ''
for the London 2012 Olympic Games to the Nigeria Olympics Committee (NOC).
The Secretary of NOC, Tunde Popoola, said that he was happy
about the understanding between NSC and NOC.
He noted that some members of the contingent to the Olympics
would leave the country for Team Nigeria 's
camp in Surrey , London
next week Tuesday.
"Some of them will be leaving on Tuesday because we
have everything planned and prepared for the athletes," he said.
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