Volleyball: Board member lauds qualification for 2014 Youth Olympics

Aboard member of the Nigeria Volleyball Federation (NVBF) Alhassan Yakmut has lauded the qualification of the national under-17 male and female beach volleyball teams for the 2014 Youth Olympics Games (YOG) coming up in Nanjing, China.

Yakmut noted this in Abuja during the week saying the qualification of both teams was an indication that the future of Nigerian volleyball lay in the youth.

Both teams, according to reports, qualified for the YOG after participating in the African qualifiers held in Ghana from April 10 to April 13, 2014.

He said: “That feat at the Youth Olympics beach volleyball qualifier is a confirmation of the fact that clearly the future of Nigerian volleyball in terms of performance on the court is in the youth.”

Beach volleyball which replaced indoor volleyball is one of the 28 events to be competed for at the YOG billed for China from Aug. 16 to Aug. 28.

With the qualification, Nigeria will join six other African countries to hoist Africa’s flags at the YOG. The YOG is the youth edition of the Olympics Games with athletes’ age stipulated between 14 years and 18 years.

Yakmut while advocating for similar success approach said, “I see much coming from their side and if we apply the same approach to the regular volleyball teams by laying emphasis on youth aspect of the game, no sooner than the next two years, we will be able to reap some very reasonable dividends in terms of performance.”

The board member, who is also the Director of Grassroots Sports Development at the National Sports Commission (NSC) advised that both teams should be given adequate preparations to have a good outing at the YOG.

“What is required of Olympic preparations is that everything has to be in place. A very conducive camping environment, nutritionally balanced catering arrangement, high quality of equipment and good exposure to technical and coaching crew of high standard,” he said.