The vice-president of Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF), Babs Ogunade has declared that the national team’s training programme will continue during the coronavirus break, as they are not certain yet if the Olympic Games will be postponed or not, megasportsarena.com reports.
Although he did not give details of how the programme will continue, with several countries already on lock-down and Nigeria also enforcing strict restrictions of sports and social activities due to the spread of COVID-19, Ogunade insisted that NBBF’s activities will continue.
With the country’s male and female basketball national teams, D’Tigers and D’Tigress having both qualified for the Olympics, Ogunade acknowledged that the NBBF cannot afford to be caught unawares if the Games are retained for July-August or shifted till a later date this year, rather than put off till 2021.
The slam-dunk guru from Lagos State, however, hinted that the NBBF have a regular camp site abroad where players can easily gather as a team for the task ahead, which he said will become busier when time comes, while also stressing that matters of hygiene are always taken very seriously.
Ogunade disclosed: “We have plans to keep the players in camp, because we know the Olympics will still hold. We have to keep them focused and enrure they continue training. That we can do by camping them, but we have to follow regulations about staying at home for now.
“One can’t be too careful so we need to also be mindful of the fallout of what it can cause. We are not going back on what our plans are. We have a regular camp site that is open to everybody and we take the hygiene seriously and we are going ahead with our plans.”
