D’Tigers’victory revival in Nigeria sports – Abba Yola …Gumel hails team’s Olympics qualification

The triumph of D’Tigers in the just concluded African Nations Cup Basketball tournament will awaken a new spirit for success in Nigeria sports just as the team has been charged to commence early preparations for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

A former top official of the National Sports Commission, Alhaji Abba Yola told Daily Trust in a telephone interview yesterday that the victory came at a time the nation was witnessing a relapse in her history in international sports.

Yola said the effort of the team in winning the trophy for the first time through beating Angola, who has always been the nation’s stumbling block in the competition has proven that with determination Nigeria can excel in major competition.

The former Special Assistant (Technical) to the former Sports minister and member of the Presidential Task Force for the 2010 FIFA World Cup said the NSC and the NBBF should commence early preparation of the team for the Rio Olympics to guarantee good performance in the game.

“The victory of the D’Tigers is a huge relief to us all in this country most especially when it came as the nation is experiencing a down drift in sports in the international scene. I believe this is a new dawn in our sports history and the only way to maintain the momentum is rotation made the difference as they turned the score around in the second quarter and once they took the lead, they held on to it, going up by as many as 19 points.

Chamberlain Oguchi hit a trifecta of three-pointers on his way to a game-high 19 points for Nigeria, with Olaseni Lawal finished with a dozen. Carlos Morais led the Angolans with 15 points while Yanick Moreira added 13.

Meanwhile, the Nigeria Olympic Committee, NOC, has hailed Nigeria’s senior national Basketball team, D’Tigers for their historic win of the AfroBasketball Competition beating African superpower Angola in the final.