Ogunkoya confident of Ogun 2006

And one of those who believe strongly that the gateway state has what it take to not just be a good host, but hosting to win the festival for the first time since the creation of the state is former queen of the track, chief Falilat Ogunkoya-Osheku.

Ogunkoya-Osheku who is a board member of the Ogun state sports council told Nigeriasports.com in an exclusive interaction that the sports council has gone back to the drawing board with a bid to reposition the state as one of the leading states sports wise in Nigeria.

“I strongly believe that we are not just going to be a good host come 2006, but would attempt to winning the sports festival for the first time and I want to sound a note of caution here that we are not going employ the win at all cost syndrome,” she stated.

The former quarter-miler give kudos to the decision of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN for excluding the duo of Africa queen of the sprint, Mary Onyali-Omagbemi and former world champion, Uchenna Emedolu from the Olympic list.

In her view it would be unjust to drop those who made the team during the qualifiers for the two experience athletes whom she said knows the rules of the game.

The Olympian, was of the opinion that the federal ministry of sports and social development stop making unnecessary permutation of how many gold medals the federal government should expect from the country Athens 2004 Olympics outing and come to term with reality on ground.

She said the only panacea to the country dwindling form in sports is to go back to the grassroot and stop the over concentration on ready-made stars.

“Look, the only solution to our failing in sports in recent time is because the nation sports administrators have neglected age group competition, so unless we go back to having competition right from the primary schools then we have not started,”

Ogunkoya praised the effort of wife of Delta state governor, Nkoyo Ibori for sponsoring the annual age group athletics competition since 1999 and urged other spirited Nigerian to emulate her gesture.