Babafemi says Olympic
boxers did not disappoint
Anthony Abolo,Jr.
Reporter, Lagos
Head boxing coach
of the Lagos State Sports Council has said that he was not disappointed over
the poor outing of the boxing team at the just concluded Athens Olympics.He
said he was highly optimistic but because of what he knew as an insider, he did
not expect much.
According to him,
“I knew we will not get a gold medal but I had projected that we could at
least get two bronze medals .I made this projection with the belief that we
would not get to meet the best of the world like having to meet boxers from
Cuba but unfortunately, that
happened and we performed woefully.”
Babafemi also
declared that the problem was with the administrators whom he accused of
selecting members of the team based on sentiments .He, at the same time,
accused the administrators of greed and selfishness and always thinking of
their pockets.
“They are selfish, greedy and think of their pockets only. They
don’t have love for the game at all.” When asked to comment on the
performance of the boxing team at the Olympics, the Head of the Technical
Committee of the Nigeria Amateur Boxing Association, Muyuili Ade-Ojo said he
was not prepared to make any comments until the team returned. Besides, he said
that NABA will meet soon to consider the performance of the team and after
that, make a statement.He also said
that the information he got about
the team while in Cuba and Germany was that they were doing fine and
responding to training. Adefemi
had a contrary view . He said “there is a whole lot of difference
between a boxer and a trainer. You
cannot take a boxer for a trainer .I believe their handlers were not good
enough. They took boxers as trainers and so the boxers went to the games with just the very little
experiences they had acquired from their previous fights and as such, they
performed badly.”
There had been high
hopes that the boxing team will do the country proud since it was one area that
Nigeria had been doing well both at the Olympics and the Commonwealth games.The
boxers performed below expectations a situation which has been attributed to
the in fighting between the boxers and officials while in camp in Cuba and
Germany.
