The Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Hon. Sunday Dare, has reiterated the necessity of various National Sports Federations under his watch to start early preparations for Tokyo 2020 which he assured would make a big difference between success and failure.
According to him, “we are left with barely 280 days to the commencement of the first two games as the Olympics and Paralympic games are scheduled to take place in Tokyo, Japan from July 21st to August 9th 2020 and 25th August to 6th September, 2020 respectively.
The Honorable Minister made this known in his meeting with the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games Federations President, Technical Directors, Secretaries General and Stakeholders at the Media Centre Package” A” of MKO National Stadium, Abuja.
“As adept sports administrators, we are fully aware that it takes a minimum of 8 years for a country to make meaningful preparation to post podium performance at the Olympic and Paralympic Games and we don’t have such luxuries for the 2020 Tokyo games” he insisted.
Hon. Dare said that countries see Olympics Games as avenue to show off their sports prowess, make statement that they are leaders in their own right, and we cannot afford to employ the Olympics as a trial events, this is a global sporting competition.
The Permanent Secretary, Mr. Olusade Adesola, in his opening remarks, said that with just 280 days to Olympics, we need to start preparations in earnest, and this meeting marks the beginning of the journey to 2020.