The Nigeria Archery Federation (NAF) is expecting a total of 125 Archers from different parts of the country to jostle for a place in the National team in the 3- days National Open trials that will be use to select players that will represent the country in regional and continental tournament slated for Cote D’Ivoire and Morocco respectively.
The 3- days Archery National Open Championship will holds from June 25th- to June 28th at the Package B of the Moshood Abiola Stadium, Abuja and will attract athletes from all over the country with seven clubs already signifying their interest to participate. The military and para-military are also expected to make a good representation.
The Federation will also use the Championship to train coaches and discover new talents in the game.
Also, like in previous edition, budding athletes discovered in the National Open will be nurtured to stardom.
Speaking to sportswriters Thursday in Abuja, Nigeria Archery Federation President Mohammed Abdullahi said the championship will be used to select athletes that will represent Nigeria in the African Championship slated for Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire in July.
“We are expecting a lot of countries during the African Championship. More than 19 countries will participate. It therefore means that we must take our best athletes to the African Championship. We need to hit the ground running now and aspire to be among the elite archers in Africa. I’m sure of the abundant talents we are having in the country. We can hold ourselves against any opposition in Africa” Abdullahi said
“We are going to have regional and continental programmes .The regional programme will hold in Cote D’Ivoire while the African tournament (continental) programme is slated for Morocco later in the year. Apart from these , there are several programmes in Europe and America and one other event in Australia. Even if we can attend all the programme we should be able to participate in a little one we can afford”
The former para-soccer boss called on well meaning Nigerians and corporate organization to identify with Archery and do their quotas to position the sports as one of the most popular in the country.
Abdullahi is cocksure that very soon, Archery will be household sports in the country.
