Rachel Tonjor, a Nigerian record holder in the Women’s 50m breaststroke, 100m breaststroke and Women’s 100m individual medley, has called for regular competions to discover more talents in the country.
Tonjor made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abeokuta, at the ongoing 22nd National Sports Festival (NSF), tagged ” Gateway Games 2024″.
The swimmer who set the record at the 2011 All Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique, said that organising regular competitions would help the talents to develop their skills.
She added that the tournaments would help the swimmers to win laurels for the country and garner more experience.
“Between 2011 and now, the record I in Maputo is still standing. So I’m looking forward to seeing someone to break the record during this festival.
“People say Nigeria isn’t winning medals at the Olympics or World Championships, but there are things we must fix first before we can achieve that feat.
“For example, we only have the Chief of Naval Staff Swimming Championship once in a year, and sometimes they don’t even hold it at all.You can’t keep training wwithoutgoing for competition to test your progress.
We also don’t have sponsors in swimming. That has impacted negatively on the the sport.
“Unlike other sports where companies like Coca-Cola are involved, swimming lacks that kind of support,” she said.
Tonjor commended the Ogun govern9r for the preparations for the 22nd edition of the festival.
According to her, the swimming pool is a standard one with quality facilities that can produce champions for the country.
Tanjor also participated in the Women’s swimming 100m breaststroke event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brasil, where she crashed out in spite of finishing third in the heat one event.
She finished her race in 1: 21:43 seconds behind Kos Island’s Zeqiri Rita and Nepal’s Singh Gwarika.(NAN)
