 |
| Chioma Ajunwa |
By: ’Tana Aiyejina
Olympic gold medallist Chioma Ajunwa-Oparah will on
Tuesday in Lagos inaugurate her foundation to help discover young athletes and
educate them on the negative consequences of using banned drugs.
The Chioma Ajunwa Foundation is organising a
competition for athletes in Lagos from November 19 to 21 but the police
officer, Nigeria’s first and only individual Olympic gold medallist, will
unveil her plans at a press conference in Lagos on Tuesday.
Ajunwa-Oparah came back from a four-year drug ban
to clinch a gold medal in the women’s long jump event of the Atlanta 1996
Olympics, but she says she doesn’t want the young athletes to encounter same in
their careers.
She said, “The Chioma Ajunwa Foundation is all
about giving back to the country that made me. I started this journey four
years ago, going to competition venues and schools, trying to let the children
know that it is wrong for them to use drugs and banned substances.
“While I was competing, I had drugs problems; I
don’t want the new generation to get involved in it too. That is why I feel
it’s necessary to use the foundation to sanitise our environment and make
sports drugs-free for the young athletes.
“I also want to catch them young. This has been a
very big problem in Nigerian sports; nobody wants to go to the grassroots. It
was through the grassroots that I was discovered and we had athletes that were
doing well. Now that sports is going down, I feel there is no better time to
inaugurate the Chioma Ajunwa Foundation than now.”
The 1991 All Africa Games gold medallist added that
2000 athletes from 50 schools would take part in the competition scheduled for
the Teslim Balogun Stadium but she lamented the lack of funds, saying it has
limited the foundation to organising the competition for pupils in Surulere
alone.
0 comments:
Post a Comment