Paris 2024: Ayomide Assures Nigerians Podium Finish

Olympic bound Ayomide Bello Powei has assured Nigerians that if well equipped and trained for the Paris 2024, she will achieve a podium finish.

Ayomide made the assertion at the 9th African Canoe Championship on Sunday at the finals which also served as an African Canoe Sprint and Para-Canoe qualifiers for Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Speaking to KFM Sports, the Paris 2024 bound Bello said that with necessary logistics in place, she will do the country proud.

“The last Olympic I was a microsecond out of the final, the number in the world did 45 seconds while I did 47 seconds, just 2 seconds.

Actually it depends on Nigeria, if they train me I believe I’m going to come back from Paris with something, not just a bronze medal, I believe I’m going to come back with either silver or gold because me training myself alone I was able to do 47 while the gold medalist did 45 in Tokyo. This time around I believe if I have a standard coach and a good boat to train I believe I will make my country proud”.

Ayomide picked two automatic qualification tickets for the 2024 summer Olympics in Paris to represent Nigeria in the C2 Women’s 500 category alongside Otuedo Beauty and in the C1 Women’s 200m.

Also Read: Hosting Olympic Qualifiers A Privilege: Nigeria Rowing President

Team Nigeria’s captain to the championship Moses Michael has added that representatives from Nigeria can do well at the Olympics with adequate support.

“Team Nigeria, I think we are going to do better in the Olympics, but with the support of the government and the ministry.

We always lack things in terms of equipments, in terms of funds everything. Look at this boat that came here, we’ve not used this boat before they just came in, Nigeria doesn’t have this kind of boat, we use homemade boats, this are the professional boats, although we have some.

Even the new ones they just brought it a day to the competition, same day we were having the competition they just brought it because we were having issues with custom, they refused to release the boat because of money”.

“I don’t think they should keep ignoring us, we dont deserve it. They should support us so that we can bring more medals, we have a lot of medals here, so they should support us, give us a good camping, this competition we didn’t camp, we came three days or four days before the competition, no training, nothing. 

They shouldn’t treat us like that, we should be treated equally with other sports. They should also remember us and pump money so that we bring more medals from the Olympics” .

This is the first time the Nigeria Canoe Federation is hosting the African Canoe Championship.