As the annual National Sports Festival, to be hosted by Edo State, Edo 2020 draws closer, Lagos State contingent of athletes are currently in high spirit, as they have expressed strong optimism of carting home medals in most of their games at this year’s festival.
The athletes who are currently training at Lagos State Polytechnic and Strong Tower Academy open fields in Ikorodu were in high spirits when Ikorodu Oga Radio correspondent visited their camp at Agbowa.
Some of the athletes who spoke with us bared their minds on their experience in the camp as well as preparations ahead of the National Sports Festival.
A scrabble player, Oshinbote Omotayo who has been representing Lagos State since 2012 was full of optimism of carting home medals in the game. In her words, ‘the training in camp has been intense. Scrabble is a medal game for Lagos State and I want to assure Lagosians that we will not disappoint them’, she assured.
Another female athlete in the Taekwando category and a current Gold Medalist, Idris Aminat have described the camp as a home away from home, going by the quality of accommodation and feeding arrangement provided for them.
‘We have been training hard and eating good food as well. The environment is very conducive. Our coaches are working hard in preparing us too. And, the training equipments and facilities provided are top-notch too. We thank the Lagos State government for the support’, she said.
‘The dream of every champion is to retain their championship. As Team Lagos at Edo 2020, we are going to the National Sports Festival to defend our medals and make Lagos proud at the games’, Rasheed Amusat another teakwando athlete reiterated.
Our correspondent who joined other selected journalists on an assessment tour of the camp facility commended the Babajide Sanwoolu administration’s efforts towards bringing the best out of the athletes.
It was however observed that, a lack of standard stadium with accompanying sporting facilities in Ikorodu was a major setback that is capable of hampering the performance of the athletes in future competitions.
The 680 Team Lagos contingent will be competing in 40 sports (8 teams sports and 32 individual sports).
