By Femi Atolagbe
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T he coach of Ondo State para table tennis, Gboye Omodoju has affirmed the readiness of his players to do the state proud at the forthcoming National Sports Festival (NSF)slated for Delta State.
He added that he had put more into the 21st National Sports Festival in terms of training saying he was sad for more than two days when he heard Para Table Tennis and two other para games will not be featuring in the 21st National Sports Festival.
Recalled, few weeks ago that National Council on Sports on October 19 approved that the three (3) compulsory Para sports in the National Sports Festival namely: Para Athletics, Para Powerlifting and Para Table Tennis would no longer feature in the National Sports Festival.
Omodoju while reacting to the development told Sporting Hope, that he was very sad when he heard that para sports had been removed from the national sports festival in Asaba.
He said: Para Sports has always been the bed rock of sports in Ondo State and in the country at large, this year para sports won 13 medals for Nigeria at Commonwealth games, five gold, three silver and five bronze.
He revealed that para table tennis also won four gold, 1silver and bronze six medals for Ondo State in the last National Sports Festival held in Edo State.
He thanked the Minister of sports for listen to the crying of the masses by restored para sports back into the festival.
According to him, “i’m very happy when the good news got to me that our sports have been restored to participate in the 21st festival in Delta State, we have been training for the competition for a very long time .
The restoration of the games was a relief balm for me and my players who have been training day and night for the competition.
By the grace of God, we will go to Asaba and do our state proud at the festival,we will work hard to surpass what we got in Edo 2020″,he said .