Nigeria Face Benin, I’Coast In Handball Tourney

The Nigeria national women’s handball team will play Ivory Coast and Benin Republic at the ANOCA Games for Africa Zone 3 in Togo.

The ANOCA games, which is organised by the Association of National Olympics Committee of Africa in each sporting zone of the continent, is to prepare teams ahead of the Africa Games which will hold in Ghana in 2024.

The Africa Zone 3 of the ANOCA games will be held between December 4 to 9 with the handball games scheduled to start today.

Nigeria will play Benin Republic in their first game on Wednesday ( today) before also playing Ivory Coast later the same day.

To this end, the Handball Federation of Nigeria invited 16 players who had close camping in Lagos under the supervision of coach Yusuf Abdukadir and coach Innocent Nwankwo before travelling to Lome, Togo ahead of their opening matches today.

Top on the list are in-form players, who recently finished playing in the Ardova Handball Premier League 2023, goalkeeper Toyin Yusuf of Plateau Peacocks, who was voted the best goalkeeper in the just concluded league, Inipki Aruwa and Diane Saloo of Safety Babes and team captain Dorothy Nyagh of Defender Babes.

Others are Benin Republic-based Rachel Overtue and Wuraola Nuhu while the trio Nigeria Women’s U-18 team Esther Mathew and  Taiwo Babatunde of Seasider Babe as well as Prudence Samuel and Lucy Onyekwere were also included in the list.