Weightlifting boss raises London 2012 Olympics alarm

*warns athletes, coaches over drugs

By Patrick Omorodion

Nigeria?s weightlifting team may be heading for a woeful outing at the London 2012 Olympics if the fears raised by the president of the Nigeria Weightlifting Federation, NWF, Mr Chimdi Ejiogu is anything to go by.

According to Mr Ejiogu, this is because the weightlifters are still training with babels bought for the 2003 All Africa Games which the country hosted in Abuja whereas new sets of babels to be used at the London Olympics have been released.

?By training with babels used at the All Africa Games in Abuja in 2003, our lifters may not get the right weights as these babels have worn and reduced in weight,? he said, stressing that the new babels should be bought so the athletes could train with them before the Games.

Speaking to Vanguard Sports in Owerri shortly before the team left for South Africa to attend a Commonwealth Championship, the NWF boss said that following the drug crises which has rocked their athletes in the past, the federation was taking necessary precautions to ensure that none of them falls foul of the drug rules.

?Our athletes have always been caught with drugs because of lack of education but this time around we are taking extra precautions to check the drug issue. We have also set a committee to look into this dope issue because we discovered that the level of education of our athletes was low and they didn?t understand what they were given,? he said.

A way out of the dope scandal, Mr Ejiogu said, was to decamp any athlete who is found with even Panadol not prescribed for him or her while any coach whose athlete is caught with drugs will be banned.

?We are also making them? understand that drugs is detrimental to their health. Any athlete seen with even Panadol not prescribed for him or her will be decamped because want to compete clean and not embarrass the country again,? he stressed.

He disclosed that reports from the team?s camp show that there is a lot of discipline while the technical reports also show that there is a lot of progress on the part of the athletes as they prepare to participate in some Olympic qualifiers.

Following their non participation at the Maputo All Africa Games, Mr Ejiogu said they missed other earlier qualifiers mostly due to lack of fund but now?the performance of our athletes in camp has given us the courage to take a shot at it at the World Championship.?

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