Nigeria’s Sports Minister Says Athletes Don’t Need Training To Win Medals

Minister of Youth and Sports, Barrister Solomon Dalung has asserted that athletes don’t need too much preparation or trainings to win medals in competitions.

Speaking on Brila FM yesterday, Dalung said the Paralympic athletes also had bad preparations like their able bodied athletes but were doing better in Brazil.

According to Dalung, “the disabled athletes have shown that all you need is a winning mentality and not too much preparation; they trained under the same condition with their able-bodied counterparts but they are winning medals now.”

However, Commonwealth champion, Odunayo Adekuruoye also speaking on the same programme faulted the minister’s claim, saying that there was no way an athlete who trained for a month or two could do well or think of winning a medal.

She apologised to her fans for failing them at the Olympics.

“It is not possible to win a medal with one or two months training. We had looked forward to good training and hoped to do well at the Olympics.

“I want to apologise to Nigerians who had looked up to me for a medal,” she said.