Date: 2017-09-09

The Chairman of the Kwara State Athletics Association, Tunde Abdulkareem has said that in spite of having high expectations of medals hauls from the 3rd National Youth Games (NYG) which opens on Saturday at the University of Ilorin, shortage of funds will limit their performance.

He expressed this when fielding questions from newsmen in Ilorin. "Even though I have high expectations from my athletes, I don't like to deceive myself, because we had shortage of funds that hindered us from presenting our full athletes," he said.

Abdulkareem who is the immediate past Vice President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) said that it would be self deceit to try to outdo states like Delta, Lagos and Akwa Ibom who come to such competitions with financial backing that makes all their athletes participate and have better chances of medals haul. He however, was optimistic that they would get a gold medal in athletics from the event.

On the NYG, he disclosed that at the inaugural edition in 2013, hosted by Abuja, he played a crucial role under the leadership of Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi as Sports Minister and Chairman of the National Sports Commission.

"The concept of the National Youth Games is a good one which is aimed at discovering talents from various sports and developing them subsequently. " It is unfortunate it didn't hold in 2014 and 2015 but we are happy it is now on consecutively in 2016 and 2017," he explained.