PARA-ATHLETE CHIDES NIGERIA'S PREPARATIONS FOR PARALYMPIC GAMES

Lagos -  A para-athlete, Femi Alabi, on Tuesday in Lagos criticised Nigeria's preparations for the London 2012 Paralympic Games scheduled for Aug. 29 to Sept. 9.

Alabi, a gold medallist at the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games, said that no adequate preparation had been made for the 2012 edition.

'We're not preparing as well as we should, because by now we are supposed to be in a camp where we have no distractions and be training intensively.

'We are only training on our own now to remain fit, instead of being on training tours to aid our performance,' the table tennis champion said.

The Paralympian explained that the major challenges being faced by Nigerian para-athletes were funding, lack of equipment and training facilities.

He claimed that no funds had yet been received by the national federations from the National Sports Commission (NSC) to provide necessary logistics for the camping of para-athletes.

'Para-athletes have been training on their own because they want to make a name for themselves.

'We para-athletes should have special training facilities that will cater for our different indoor sports so as to eliminate the constant disturbance from the able-bodied athletes.

'The sharing of training facilities with able-bodied athletes has been a challenge and has reduced the pace of training,' Alabi said.

Alabi won two gold medals at the 2012 Paralympic qualifiers in Egypt and four gold medals at the 2011 All-Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique.(NAN)