You Need Winning Mentality, Not Training – Dalung Blast Athletes

Barrister Solomon Dalung, the minister of Youth and Sports, may have again triggered the ire of Nigerians following his latest claim that athletes don’t need too much preparation to excel in competitions.

Dalung made the claim on Brila FM radio Lagos and monitored by Vanguard.

His remark comes on the heels of the sterling performance posted so far by Team Nigeria athletes at the on-going Paralympic Games also in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

According to him, the Paralympic athletes also had bad preparations like their able bodied athletes but are doing better in Brazil.

He said: “The disabled athletes have shown that all you need is a winning mentality and not too much preparation, they trained under the same condition with their able bodied counterparts but they are winning medals now.”

However, countering Dalung’s claim, Commonwealth Wrestling champion, Odunayo Adekuoroye, said that there is no way an athlete who trained for a month or two could do well or think of winning a medal.

Adekuoroye who was speaking on the same programme apologised to her fans for failing them at the Olympics.

She said: “It is not possible to win a medal with one or two months training. We had looked forward to good training and hoped to do well at the Olympics. I want to apologise to Nigerians who had looked up to me for a medal.”

Team Nigeria Paralympic athletes have so far garnered a total of nine medals consisting six gold, two silver and one bronze.

They currently occupy the ninth position on the log as against the 78th position Team Nigeria finished in the rankings published by the organizing committee of Rio 2016 Olympic Games.