Veteran sports icon and ex-Super Eagles great, Chief Segun Odegbami has lauded the organization and template of the ongoing National Sports Festival, tagged Gateway Games 2024, saying that it has restored the original objectives of the founding fathers, which was initiated in the aftermath of the Nigerian civil war to foster bonding and unity among Nigerians.
Odegbami, a Grand Sports Ambassador for the games, gave this commendation during an interview with TVC.
Lauding the vision of the Dapo Abiodun-led administration for the games, Odegbami said housing of athletes, transport logistics, and the provision of facilities during the 22nd edition of the festival were unique and would enhance the discovery of young talents.
He also lauded the Federal Government for integrating a contingent of young athletes outside of the state contingents to compete at the games.
He said: “The objective really is to compete; we are talking sports, so young people are back. In fact, the Federal Government, through the National Sports Commission, brought in a contingent of young, talented athletes, different from all the other athletes from the states, to come and compete with whatever the states brought together.
“That has brought focus to the discovery of young talents again, and you could see the celebration that this has caused.
“That team has started winning medals; they are not representing any state in the country. In the past, we used to have this shenanigan where states would go and hire athletes from different places, and so on, which diluted the products that we had.
“But now it appears that everything is going back to focus; all the athletes, over 12,000 of them, are housed in a village, so they are together.
“You can imagine what is going on there: true integration. Young people from different parts mingling, eating, and all of that.
“By the time they leave that place, it is eternal friendship, the original objective for which the games were set up.
“So little things like that are happening in the Gateway Games that were not there before, and this is helping us to restore those objectives for which the National Sports Festival was set up.”
Odegbami, who recalled that his football career started at the NSF in the 1973 festival, said the festival gave him the opportunity to represent the country, adding that the organizers of Ogun 2024 had done a terrific job in structuring the festival along the same path of talent discovery.
“I was a young student; I was in school in Ibadan, and I was invited to play for the Western State team. I went in there, played my first international match, and realized that I was even good for the first time.
“I went to the festival, and after it, I was invited to the national team in December of 1973. That was the beginning. I was not part of the team that put this together. Whoever did it did a terrific job. I just came in two weeks ago when I was made Grand Sports Ambassador, and I have been looking at what is going on, and I must confess that I am amazed.
“It is like there was a vision, and that vision encapsulates what I had been thinking needed to be done to harness the opportunities that exist in this kind of game.
“The first is this: you see, the sports themselves, the running and jumping, are the least activities in the games.
“The greater activity is putting the festival together—where would they (the athletes) stay, where would they eat, how would they be transported, what kind of security would you need, and so on and so forth.
“That takes up almost 90 percent of this entire project. To put together those things is mind-boggling.
“Once you start focusing on those systems, you create an ecosystem: cultural, economic, and so on. So, for the first time, we are looking at developing an ecosystem out of these games,” he added.
