Ashiru Speaks On Achievement Of Nigeria At Taekwondo Championship in Scotland

 Interview with President of Nigeria Taekwondo Federation (NTF), George Ashiru after the success recorded by Team Nigeria at the 6th Commonwealth Taekwondo Championship in Scotland.


1. How will you describe the performance of the team?

Team Nigeria made the biggest impact at the Commonwealth Taekwondo Championships. We won 10 medals with only 15 athletes a success rate better than teams with much larger numbers. We placed top 5 at the events, we won "Best Referee" award via Ms Margaret Binga (NTF Vice President). The 4 members of the NTF Coaching Department who coached the athletes for a total of 6 weeks did a marvelous job. The logistics arrangement by the High Performance Department at the NSC did a commendable job. The physical presence of the NSC' DG Hon Gbenga Elegbeleye further motivated the athletes.

2. What impact will this performance have on the country's qualifications to 2016 Rio Olympics?

It is firstly a morale booster for Nigerian Taekwondo as we have discovered new stars. Each of the medalists win important ranking points. It is still a long road to qualifying for RIO because other African countries' athletes are all over the world competing regularly and packing up points. 2015 big events, the African Games, the World Champions, the World Team Cup, and the RIO Continental qualifying tournaments are must attends for us. The athletes are there, so, with the right resources, we can achieve whatever we put our mind to do.

3. What lessons are you taking from the tournament?

We need the latest electronic equipments for regular training for our athletes. In Taekwondo these days, the entire scoring process is now mainly electronic, with little human interferance. We had simulation training for our athletes with the few equipments we had and that made the difference. Long term camping also made a difference. The coaches had enough time to train, select, and tune up the athletes to achieve our desired goals. Our goal was 5 medals, and we got 10. 

4. What is the next plans for the federation?

We will review this achievement and continue with our strategic plan in 2015.  The Korean Ambassador Championships will be used to discover even more athletes and the National Sports Festival of 2015 will be used to select the national team towards AAG 2015. We need thereafter to move into high performance training and foreign training and competition tours to get our team to peak at the appropriate times.