Zainab Saleh said she is highly impressed with the positive attitude of the female athletes and coaches at the 5th edition of the Zainab Saleh international female Karate international championship.
She described the event as one of the best since the inception of the annual female Karate championships.
The Lagos based sports administrator said the organisers of the event will analysis and come up with templates which will enable them put up a better tournament next year.
She said, “This year’s event is one of the best we have seen so far. It took a lot of effort and planning to ensure we got it to a level with which we wanted it to get it.
“A lot of work was put in by the tournament director, Olusegun Akinola who worked tirelessly to ensure that we could have a hitch free event. As you could have seen, the event was fantastic, of international standard and it was a brilliant event”.
Saleh further said, “The truth of the matter is that we just want to ensure the event get better every year. Most of the things that I have noticed is that we need to make sure that we can get more people coming in to look at what Karate is doing; and at the same time just tidy up one or two places but all in all, I think the event went very well. We will sit down, analysis and look at exactly where we feel we are lacking”.
She revealed that, “My target for next year’s international championships which will be going into the sixth year God willing is to ensure that I can get more participation, more sponsors and more people coming out to watch this event. We need people to come out”.
The Lagos state Karate boss said Nigeria athletes have the ability to conquer Africa if they compete at international competitions regularly.
“Nigeria definitely has the potentials to rule Africa. The only challenge we have is attendance at international competition. Most of the times, there are no funding to send our athletes abroad. The only way they can test their technical abilities with their international counterparts is to attend international events.
“So until we can get that right, I do not see any reasons why Nigeria cannot be in the forefront of everything that they do. Nigerians do have the ability to conquer anything that they put their minds to”, she said.
