National Junior Taekwondo Championship will produce Nigeria’s future Olympians – Official

Chika Chukwumerije, Technical Director, Nigeria Taekwondo Federation, says the 1st National Junior Taekwondo Championship will produce future Nigeria’s Olympians for the sports.
Chukwumerije told the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Thursday that the event organised by NTF was aimed at giving young taekwondo athletes an opportunity to showcase their talents.
He said the event would also be used to rank budding athletes.
He said: “In our history since 1987 when the federation was inaugurated, we’ve never had a national junior championship and I think it’s absolutely criminal to the young generation.
“They should have the exact same opportunity like the senior ones so that they will gain confidence and experience at all levels.
“We are also starting a ranking system. The ranking system will help us as we organise more tournaments to see who is performing more consistently.
“So, they will come up through the ranks. We also want to catch talents at a very young stage so that we can invest in those talents.
“We are going to find our future Olympians competing here all-day, and we want people to be part of it.”
Speaking with NAN on the expectations of the NTF, Chukwumerije said it was the desire of the federation to showcase taekwondo as one of Nigeria’s most consistent sports.
Chukwumerijie said: “We want to showcase taekwondo as one of the best sports in Nigeria. We’ve been very consistent. We’ve done 13 programmes in the past seven months.
“We are always open to organising programmes for our base.
Finally, we want to entertain.”
Asked if the federation was into any form of partnership with any corporate organisation, the technical director said: “So far we are doing it on the strength of our ideas and resolve”.
According to him, stakeholders will put in their resources, but we hope to scale it up through corporate sponsorship as time goes on.
NAN reports that in the male preliminaries holding at the indoor gymnasium hall of the National Stadium, Abuja, athletes will compete in the -45kg, -48kg, -51kg, -55kg, -59kg, -63kg, -73kg, -78kg and the +78kg categories.
The female preliminaries will see athletes slug it out in the -42kg, -44kg, -46kg, -49kg, -52kg, -55kg, -59kg, -63kg, -68kg and +68kg categories.
Athletes, who progress from the preliminaries, will then qualify for the second round of the tournament, which would be held after a lunch break the same day.
The quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals of both the male and female competitions would then be decided.
NAN also reports that the four-day event had seen athletes and officials arrived on May 15, while accreditation, referee training and head coaches meeting were held on February 17.
The weigh-in of all weight categories were also held the same date.