How Nigeria Can Become a Strong Force in Marathon Race

Pin It Now! Nigeria has the potential to become a strong force in Marathon race considering that she is the world’s most populous single black nation. Apart from being blessed with population, she is also endowed with enormous wealth and beautiful topography suitable for training marathoners who could become future champions of the world. Kenya and Ethiopia only have one particular advantage which they have exploited to become leaders in this area of sports- mountainous terrain.
Nigeria is blessed with mountainous terrains in Cross River state (Obudu mountain range), plateau state, Taraba state, etc where these marathoners can have their endurance training. Obudu mountain range for instance is about1,600m above sea level. While the Kenyans, the Ethiopians and even the Ugandans are making hay in marathon by tapping their natural environment, we have not been able to utilize ours to our advantage. If we properly tap this resource we would become world marathon champions, rubbing shoulders with Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda in no distant time.
The second advantage that we have which the afore-mentioned countries do not have is wealth. With her abundance of oil wealth Nigeria should be able to afford whatever she needs to be able to emerge a formidable force in the area of marathon race. She can actually pay for the services of seasoned and proven coaches from anywhere in the world to help train these athletes who are hungry to make their country proud.
In a nutshell, Nigeria could take advantage of her vast populace by recruiting a lot of her able-bodied young men and women who would be given adequate training and properly motivated by giving them incentives to make them represent their country well at international meets. If this is done people would even volunteer to be part of the training exercise. When the athletes know that adequate provisions have been made to cater for their welfare they will put their minds, bodies and souls into making their country proud.
Another option is for the country to actually go the source of the best coaches – Kenya and Ethiopia and either go into bilateral sports relationship with them or do some hiring. If they go into a mutual relationship with the government or the sport’s governing body in this country they can be given reliable coaches to help train their marathoners. I have said hiring as a second option because we all know that apart from honours the second name of this game is money- it is business. So she could actually go there and use her money to lure the best hands to her country where they would be properly catered for to bring out the best in them. If they are well paid they would switch their allegiance to Nigeria.
Lastly, Nigeria could also begin to organize international competitions that would afford her athletes the opportunity to compete with experienced marathoners from other parts of the world. If this is done consistently the tendency is that in no distant time she would catch up with others and even become better. This is why the Lagos and the Port Harcourt international marathon must be kept alive by making sure they are organized annually to keep exposing our athletes to their counterparts from other parts of the world.

How Nigeria Can Become a Strong Force in Marathon Race