Nigeria’s most successful marathon, road races, long and middle distances athletics club, the High-Altitude Athletics Club, has registered 75 of its runners for the first Abuja International Marathon.
According to the owner of the Jos-based club, Steve Nuhu, they are ready to storm the 29 April race with some of the country’s best runners.
Unarguably Nigeria’s most successful distance coach, Nuhu told reporters in Jos over the weekend that of the 75 runners, 30 of them are elite men and women runners, who have dominated the Nigerian running circuit in the last ten years and have also done well overseas.
Some of the elite men runners registered for the Abuja International Marathon are Emmanuel Gyang Gwom, Adamu Shehu Mu’azu, Gyang Boyi Nyango, Tokbe Christopher Gwet, Okot Friday, Stephen Joshua Dalyop, Istifanus Peter Mahan, Friday Yohanna, Joseph Kumbam and Solomon Dauda.
The elite women according to Nuhu are Deborah Pam Badung, Elizabeth Nuhu Power, Blessing Shambor Solomon, Charity Agofure, Hudung Gyang Stephen, Rosemary Danlami, Dinatu Yohanna, Monica Ezekiel Mandun, Juliana Usman and Faustina Oguh.
Nuhu thanked Unicentral Resources Generation Limited, the licensee of the Abuja International Marathon, for bringing a proper international marathon to the North.
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“I hope our Governors from the North will be in Abuja on April 29 and watch the race and see what we have been talking about for so many years. We have what it takes to compete with the best in the world, but our major problem has been a lack of support from the government and the corporate world.
“We have been saying the same thing. All parents want their kids in schools today, so the only way to develop our children is to make sports part of the school curriculum. Let all the kids run as early as age five or six years by their early teen talented ones will be discovered and then we will have the centre of excellence in each senatorial zone where the talents discovered will be exposed to elite training at a very early age.
“But our leaders are not listening. With the desired support, we have what it takes to rule the world”.
Nuhu revealed the target of the High-Altitude Athletics Club is to win Nigerian prizes at the Abuja International Marathon and also have many runners finish in the top ten in the international category.
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