The coach of Bayelsa State’s swimming team, Gentle Offoin, says the team has surpassed his expectations at the ongoing 20th National Sports Festival, Edo 2020.
Offoin told the News Agency of Nigeria in Benin on Friday that nobody could stop Bayelsa State in any swimming event after this NSF.
The coach said the team’s success so far at the ongoing Edo 2020 was due to hard work and the support of the state government.
He said: “Our success here is not magic, it is the training.
“We spent a lot of time training and training, even when the festival was postponed.
“We kept training and at the end we got the result.
“Our expectation for the festival was to win 10 gold medals.
“So far, we have nine and this is just the fifth day of the NSF and we hope to surpass our expectation.”
Offoin added that the team hoped to win more medals before the end of the swimming event, and that the team had achieved more than it planned for the tournament.
He said: “The support of the governor has also been a contributing factor of our achievement.
“The state got the best in sports when he was a commissioner for sports, now that he is the governor, the best is expected.”
Bayelsa State has so far won a total of 23 medals, comprising nine gold, six silver and eight bronze, in the swimming event at the ongoing NSF.