- World and Paralympic champion, Kehinde Paul, is confident Nigeria will once again conquer the world at the 2020 Para-powerlifting World Cup commencing on Wednesday (today) at the Abuja International Conference Centre.
World and Paralympic champion, Kehinde Paul, is confident Nigeria will once again conquer the world at the 2020 Para-powerlifting World Cup commencing on Wednesday (today) at the Abuja International Conference Centre.
Paul, who won gold at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Brazil and at the 2017 Para-Powerlifting Championships in Mexico City in 2017 in the 65kg category, says Nigeria will dominate the championships, which serve as one of the qualifiers for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
“This is the qualifiers for the Paralympics, we believe we are going to win and conquer, and bring more gold for Nigeria,” he told Brila.
However, the Technical Director of the Nigeria Para-powerlifting Federation, Joy Mayaki, says the team are prepared to win the 2020 World Cup.
Nigeria will slug it out with about 23 other countries in the competition and Mayaki says the athletes are ready after their camping process in Lagos and Abuja.
“We are ready to go. The morale is high and the Minister of Youth and Sports, Sunday Dare, visited the athletes on Tuesday to motivate and inspire them. After all these, I’m confident we will beat the rest of the participating teams to the overall medal count,”
Prior to the World Cup, there was a crisis in the federation with the Technical Director locked inside the team’s gymnasium in Lagos by athletes to press home their demands.
Mayaki says the crisis has since been resolved in the interest of the athletes and the success of the team at the World Cup.
“We have come to a compromise in the interest of the athletes and the sport. The aim of the federation and that of the ministry is to achieve good results at the World Cup,” she added.
