Lagos State Will Produce World Champions, Modinat.

An honourary coach of the Lagos State Table Tennis Association Coaches, Malik Modinat has said that the crop of young talented table tennis players participating in the ongoing six weeks intensive training programme at the Mobolaji Johnson sportshall, Rowe Park, Yaba are the future champions of Nigeria.

Modinat, a Gold Medalist at the 1999 West African University Games held in Cotonoi, Republic of Benin, said the state Table Tennis Association had brighten the career of the ping-pongers, majority of whom were drawn from the just concluded Alhaji Kola Oseni under 15 table tennis championship through the programme which has changed the players psyche, attitude and skills for better.

According to her, the programme has been able to expose the players deficiencies and the team of coach assigned to tutor them, have ejected in them modern tactical approach to the game of table tennis and also build confidence in them as well as endurance which most of them lack.

On the short term training programme, the Gold medalist at 2000 National Sports Festival in Bauchi urged the LSTTA not to relent in her efforts to continue with the intensive training programme as she said that the last Lagos International Table Tennis classic showed that Nigerian ping-pongers are naturally gifted but there is need for developmental training programmes to redeem their image in international competitions.

On the forthcoming National Youth Games in Abuja, Modinat is optimistic that the state ping-pongers who are undergoing the programme would make the state proud following their positive response to training and their zeal to acquire new skills to help them become one of the nation’s top ranked players.

The one-time winner of Asoju-Oba Women’s Singles thanked the board of LSTTA for providing sports grants to the table tennis players as the gesture has been one of the motivating factors encouraging them to turn out enmass for the programme.