The Speaker, Enugu State House of Assembly, Edward Ubosi, has said that the House was committed to raising boxers that would represent the country at Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan.
Speaking to the newsmen on Monday in Enugu, Ubosi said the Assembly was committed to seeing that Enugu State joined athletes from other parts of the country to represent Nigeria at the Games.
He said that the Assembly’s ongoing grassroots boxing talent hunt in all the Local government areas of the state would produce boxers for the Olympics.
The speaker said that the talent hunt was one way to diversify sports in the state and urged well to do Nigerians and stakeholders to supports the project.
Sports are one of the means of promoting peace and unity in the state, country and world at large.
Ubosi said that the grassroots boxing promotion was in line with the present administration’s policy on capacity building and diversification of the economy.
The ongoing grassroots boxing talent hunt is being coordinated by former boxing champion, Ikechukwu Okoronkwo, and supervised by the Chairman, Enugu State House of Assembly Committee on Youth and Sports, Nelson Uduji.
Contributing, Okoronkwo said that training of grassroots boxers was ongoing at the various centers, adding that more equipment would soon get to the venues.
The coordinator noted the committee was doing its best to ensure that all the state’s 17 local government areas benefited from the project by increasing the number of training centers.
Okoronkwo explained that the committee would not only fish out boxing talents from schools but would go outside the school system to discover talents that were within the age bracket.
He thanked the local government councils’ chairmen and school heads for their support from the beginning of the project, urging them to keep it up till the target was actualised.
