By James Agberebi:
Former Nigeria national boxing champion, Obisia Nwakpa, has attributed the country's poor showing in the boxing event at the just concluded Rio 2016 Olympics to inexperience on the part of the coaching crew.
Efe Ajagba, Nigeria's sole representative in the boxing event, crashed out in the quarter-finals to Kazakhstan's Ivan Dychko in the super heavyweight category.
In a chat with Completesportsnigeria.com, Obisia, who is also a coach, posited that the thought of going to Rio without experienced coaches cost Nigeria a chance of winning a medal.
"If you look at all the sports at the Olympics, you will observe that most of the countries went with experienced coaches. So why are we deceiving ourselves? From the technical coach to the head coach of other countries, there is no one below 50 years among them. Because the experience matters," Obisia told Completesportsnigeria.com.
"Experience and maturity of the person in charge matters. Because you don't want a coach who will tell you no, you now go and bring someone who only did boxing for five years and make him a national coach. Even someone who boxed for seven years, you went ahead to make him a national coach.
"It does not solve the problem. If you plan to get just one gold in a tournament, you need four to five boxers. All the coaches we took for the Rio Games are inexperienced and that was the reason we failed."
He added: "Many of the people who parade themselves about, claiming they know boxing, they don't know anything. And I am holding the sports ministry responsible because they don't know who a qualified coach is. You can't be a football person and tell me what is happening in boxing. Those at the ministry are not coming out to know whether the federations are functioning. So these are the problems."
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