For the past five years, Egypt overthrew Nigeria’s dominance of table tennis in Africa and this continued unabated until what befell the North Africans recently at the maiden African Top 16 Cup when Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri defeated two Egyptians on his way to clinching the title.
This is what as prompted Segun Toriola’s submission recently when he concluded that the era of Egypt ruling the game is over.
“We have improved a lot now especially with young players like Aruna Quadri as everybody witnessed what happened at the Lagos World Tour and the African Top 16 Cup. At present, some of the Egyptian players are afraid of Nigerian players.
The Egyptians used to think that they could easily defeat Nigerian players but now they have doubts because our performance at the Lagos World Tour has convinced them.
“I believe in the next four to five years, we will see tremendous improvements in Nigerian table tennis and I am hopeful that young players like Tosin Oribamishe will be an Africa champion in the next three or four years,” he stated.
The former African champion who spearheaded a two-week training exercise for junior players said he would be willing to support the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) in its quest to revive the fortunes of the game.
“For me it’s very important to give something back to the young ones and everybody knows that I have been playing with the national team for many years. As I am planning to quit next year, it is very important to let the young ones have a deeper understanding of the game especially the basics.
Having gained a lot of knowledge even as a junior player and with more than 15 years experience, I think it is also very important for me to impart on the younger players,” he said.
For the President, NTTF, Wahid Oshodi, having players like Toriola is a plus to the country.
His words: “What the federation is trying to do is to ensure that we get our players constantly engaged and we are lucky to have Toriola, who is willing to work with the national coaches. I think the most important thing now is coming off the back of a successful 2014 Commonwealth Games especially in the men’s team. Now we know that we need some new players and some of the players hopefully in the next four years will be at the next Commonwealth games, I’m quite sure that one or two of them will be there so we need to work harder to build on the successes we have had and I believe a new batch of stars will be unearthed soon.”
Oshodi also appealed to sponsors to identify with the game:
“We must thank our sponsors, the people who have backed us, but organise more tournaments requires more money and that is the major constraint we are facing.
But we are looking to the National Sports Commission (NSC) now more than ever. We need their backing and support.
We told them we would deliver at the Commonwealth Games and we delivered a bronze, which we haven’t done in a long time. We are very proud of that bronze medal considering the fact that we have two young players in the team – Ojo Onaolapo and Aruna Quadri.
So it tells you that the work we are doing is paying off but now we need money and that means looking toward NSC and also our sponsors have been very helpful. They tried quite hard but now we need the Federal Government to back table tennis in Nigeria,” he added.
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