TheCable

Sunday Dare, minister of youth and sports development, has challenged various national sports federations (NSF) to begin early preparations for the 2020 Olympic Games.

The minister, however, assured that early preparation for the Olympiad would make a big difference between success and failure.

Dare said this in a meeting with the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic games federations presidents, technical directors, secretaries, and stakeholders at the media centre the MKO Abiola National Stadium on Tuesday.

“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,” Dare said.

“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 added that countries see Olympic games as an avenue to show off their sports prowess, make a statement that they are leaders in their own right.

“We cannot afford to employ the Olympics as a trial events, this is a global sporting competition,” he added.

Olusade Adesola, permanent secretary, in his opening remarks, said that with just 280 days to Olympics, Nigeria needs to start preparations in earnest, and this meeting marks the beginning of the journey to 2020.

The Games of the XXXII Olympiad will take place from July 24 to August 9, 2020, in Tokyo, Japan.

Preliminary events in some sports will begin on July 22.