A new chapter has been opened as Nigeria makes inroads into other sports.
In this interview with PREMIUM TIMES at the ongoing Fencing World Cup in Lagos, Nigeria’s fencing coach, Ibrahim Alogba, shared his insights on the sport’s beauty, benefits, and challenges in Nigeria.
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As the country’s fencing team makes its mark on the international stage, Coach Alogba speaks on what it takes to succeed in the sport and how Nigeria can become a force to be reckoned with in the world of fencing.
Excerpts…
PT: What is it about fencing that makes it such a unique and captivating sport, and how do you think it can be promoted and developed in Nigeria
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Coach Alogba: Fencing is an amazing sport. You have to think a lot to be able to say you want to fence. It’s like literally playing chess. You have to calculate the time and do a few moves ahead, let your opponent react, then you counter and stuff like that. It’s very delicate and technical. It makes everybody that has learned fencing to be sound in mind. It’s amazing. For us hosting the World Cup in Nigeria, it’s very good. Our athletes don’t have any experience literally. Only one of our athletes has fenced in the African championship, and it was done here two years ago. That’s the only way he had to fence. We’ve not had any of our fencers go out there to fence. The funding is a lot. The equipment costs a lot. Bringing it here is amazing, and we had to use everything we had, manage the resources to get this. It’s not been easy; the kids are doing well but not too well because they are fencing against champions, so it’s not easy, but we are trying to push hard.
PT: What benefits do you think Nigeria and its athletes can derive from hosting and participating in international fencing competitions like the ongoing World Cup
Coach Alogba: The exposure is out of this world. When the kids came, they were mesmerized when they saw tall guys from other countries. They’ve spoken to people they never thought they would speak to. We have some of our fencers that are literally grassroots, and we paid for every single thing for them to get here. And it’s not like we have any funding. We didn’t get the support we needed, but we still made sure they came out. A partnership with Charter House is good. Most of the things they usually question us with when we go out there for bidding is the security of Nigeria, but when they see that a place like Charter House from the UK comes and builds something like this here and is also supporting the sport, they understand that people are just portraying that out there to give us a bad image.
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PT: What are your targets and expectations for the Nigerian team participating in the World Cup, and how do you think they can overcome the challenges they face in terms of experience and competition?
Coach Alogba: One of the things we lack is experience. When it comes to any sport, unless you are just lucky, you need experience in order to be able to perform. Before you get called as an elite athlete, you have to have a lot of experience. Basically, our athletes do not have that yet. When we get more competitions, and they are able to compete more; if we get a chance for sponsors to help us push our athletes out of the country, help them participate in more competitions because imagine the Olympics. I’m sure you guys were watching the Olympics, and it looked like there was no Nigerian there because we don’t have any senior athlete for us. We have people that want to fence, but it’s expensive, so there is no support. Our goal is to be able to say we are competing more and have a lot more competition under our belt, so we are able to say we have learned these, and there are no jitters and fears.
PT: Can you give us an idea of the current state of fencing in Nigeria, including the number of fencers, training facilities, and competitions?
Coach Alogba: Firstly, we start from our grassroots. The athletes that are representing us are probably around six, and four of them are grassroots. The two are not grassroots. For us to be able to say we are good, we have to feed the grassroots. We have athletes in the diaspora that fence there. What we mainly focus on here is helping. There, they fence other weapons like sabre and all that. Here, we don’t have athletes to represent us that much. The athletes we have right now are six that are based in Nigeria.
What is held presently is a male junior World Cup. Seven players are here for Nigeria; one is from the diaspora, and six are from Nigeria. If I’m not mistaken, about ten countries are here.
PT: Thank you for your time
Coach Alogba: Thank you too
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