Lagos State Commissioner for Sports and Social Development Prince Ademola Adeniji-Adele has urged Nigerians to draw from the lessons of Beijing Olympic Games and commence early preparation for the next, local media reported Monday.
Adeniji-Adele said against the backdrop of Nigeria's failure to repeat the Atlanta '96 football feat against Argentina on Saturday.
He said drawing from the lessons, Nigeria should commence preparations for the London 2012 Olympic Games immediately.
"We have learnt greatly from the Games. My appeal is that we should not go home and throw into the dust bin the lessons we have learnt here," he said.
"We only proposed to win eight gold medals at the Games but we did not prepare well for it, instead we ended up winning silver and bronze," the commissioner said.
He said that while other countries came to the Olympics every four years with newly discovered athletes, Nigeria still relied on its aged and fagged out athletes on some events.
According to him, it is time the whole nation took an example from Lagos state by going to the grassroots to discover talents and nurture them for tasks ahead.
For the country to regain its lost glory in sports, we must go back to the grassroots and that means developing school sports," he said.
He added that Lagos state had gone beyond school sports with the introduction of local government sports where artisans with sporting talents could also be discovered.
Adeniji-Adele called on the federal government ensure that Nigeria got back on track in sports development.
(Xinhua News Agency August 26, 2008)