Five swimmers to represent Nigeria at African Championships

Five swimmers are to represent the country at the African Championships later in the year, the Chairman, Lagos State Aquatic Association, Samuel Jasimiel said yesterday.
Jasimiel said in an interview that the swimmers are from Lagos State, Delta and Edo, adding that they qualified at the West African trials in Senegal in June.
He said that Nigeria coming third in the West African qualifiers was not a bad result because of the inadequate facilities in the country.
“We are able to secure third place in the competition in Senegal; the representatives were drawn from the open trial that was conducted at Teslim Balogun Stadium in April.
“Those that qualified to represent the country have since gone back to their different states to continue their private training.
“We are unable to camp the swimmers now because we have yet to receive financial allocation from Ministry of Youth and Sports and the National Stadium, Lagos Swimming Pool is not ready.
“We are thereby constrained by paucity of funds but as soon as the money is released, we will start camping because the championships are just about two months away,’’ he said.
On the proposed national swimming competition formerly slated for Cross River in June, Jasimiel said that the hosting right had been withdrawn from the state.
“Cross Rivers will not be hosting the tournament as announced because their swimming pool is not ready; we are told to partner with them to refurbish it but we also lack funds.
“We have proposed to another state and they have promised to look into it. The commissioner of sport of that state is ready to host, we are waiting for the governor’s approval.
“When everything is ready we will then give the date for the competition which I believe will not be far from our expectation.
Lack of competitions in swimming is not peculiar to us, it cuts across the federations, but as soon as the swimming pool is ready, we will set the ball rolling,” he said. (NAN)