Nigeria’s women national basketball team, D’Tigress’ forward, Evelyn Akhator has promised that she and her colleagues will be ready of Mozambique, USA and hosts, Serbia at this month’s 2020 Olympic Games qualifying tournament in Belgrade, megasportsarena.com reports.
Speaking ahead of the start of the competition on Thursday, Akhator stressed that all players in D’Tigress are ready to give their very best, in order to ensure they gain qualification for the main event in Tokyo, Japan later on this year.
She affirmed that their eyes are fully set on taking Nigeria’s flag to the Olympics, just as they did in qualifying for the FIBA Women’s World Cup, and they will now fully aim to get a repeat of the team’s first tournament outside of Africa, which came at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece.
Baack then, D’Tigress qualified as African champion, having won the Afrobasket for the first time in 2003 in Mozambique, but the team could not survive their baptism of fire in Athens, as they lost all their five games in Group A, against Australia, Brazil, Greece, Japan, and Russia.
Nonetheless, D’Tigress still got a consolation win in a placement game, as they beat Korea for a final finish of 11th out of 12 teams, and became the first women’s basketball squad from Africa to win a game at the Olympics.
That memory is now spurring Akhator and her colleagues forward, as they seek glory in Serbia and ultimately eye Tokyo 2020, but she added that they will cautiously take everything one step at a time, doing their best to blend and play as a unit strong enough to challenge world champs, USA, highly rated Europeans from Serbia, and their African rivals from Mozambique.
Akhator retorted: “We’re just taking one step at a time. We’re just doing our possible best to come together, just get to know each other more, practice and play well. You know, we’re coming from our various teams overseas. I believe, at the end of the day, we’re going to be ready to play Mozambique, Serbia, and USA.”
