Gymnastic Coach Austin Asuquo has declared that Nigeria must change from winning laurels by chance to winning through deliberate effort through proper planning, training and execution.
He made the submission while baring his mind on Nigeria’s performances in the past, chances at the on-going Commonwealth Games in Australia and the way forward.
Asuquo who is currently regarded as the most qualified Gymnastic coach in the country,noted that the nation has never gone all out to plan for victory, underscoring the absence of developmental plan in all the sports in the country, adding that laurels won have been due to individual efforts of athletes who chose to go the extra mile not minding glaring lack of support.
Asuquo who recently sealed a six months deal with an Ethiopian Gymnastics club said it is increasing impossible to win laurels in most sports without going through the necessary training coupled with vital competitive experience.
“We have no development plans at all and that is rather unfortunate. The only federation that you can say knows what it means to have development plan is Wrestling Federation under Daniel Igali and it is working for them. That is the way to go you cannot lack development plans and when there is a championship you gather athletes from here and there and throw them into the championship after two weeks training, it doesn’t work that way and if they win it is individual effort and not that anything unique has been done,” said the International Federation of Gymnastics(FIG) certified coach who is equally a member of Gymnastics Federation of Nigeria (GFN).
Asuquo who apparently is not happy with inactive nature of the most sports federations in the country, opined that the nation has a lot of potentials being sacrificed on the altar ego and other distractions.
“We have the potentials but unfortunately we don’t love ourselves,” he submitted