Following the 2nd AFN Golden League in Port Harcourt last weekend, special assistant (technical) of the Delta State Sports Commission, Chief Seigha Porbeni believes there is a need to change athletes’ preparation for international championships.
Porbeni was speaking with ACLSports during the first Golden League of the year and second of the season at the University of Port Harcourt High Performance Centre.
“Athletics is not like other sports. You must have training age, training time which contributes to your overall performance.”
Porbeni thinks a lot of expectations are placed on athletes to deliver within a short time. Athletes are expected to perform better than they did at the first Golden League in Kaduna last December.
“You don’t expect people if they truly are in developmental stage to perform miracles with times and distances between November and January.”
“We can’t continue to keep doing the same old fashioned culture of preparing for every championship. If we want to join the rest of the world scientifically, we must propose a developmental period which involves; muscular body, lower body, upper body development, core strength development, cardiorespiratory, total flexibility, agility etc,” he said.
The former Nigerian sprinter is of the opinion that a fire brigade approach should be avoided if Nigeria intend to do well at international championships without doping.
“In the 100m event, if you expect anything now like a 10.01, 10.02 we are in trouble because it will be short lived but if we go lower in the heats, it’s better. Else, such athlete is going magical or on something.”
The former track and field coach was excited Queen Obisesan broke her own record in the hammer throw. Obisesan made a new mark of 65.01m beating her previous mark of 63.79m five years ago in Ilorin. Porbeni however adviced the Athletics Federation of Nigeria to harness more talents from the grassroots.
“Field events are highly technical, give it to the Czechs, Polish, Russians, Bulgarians they are technically equipped. At some point Cuba dominated in the hammer throw. We have to start catching them young from four years old,” said Porbeni.
“The drills becomes optimised, they perform well, the timing, techniques, speed, angle of release all come to play so they don’t do it at old age. You must catch them young and bring them up scientifically, biomechanics, sports science, sports nutrition, exercise, physiology so many things come to play.”
The next international championship is the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia billed to hold 4-15 April.
