Nigeria‘ll not attend World Cadet Challenge, says NTTF

Lagos – The Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) says it will not send a team to the forthcoming World Cadet Challenge Championships holding in Mangilao, Central Guam, from Oct. 27 to Nov.  4.

Segun Oguntade, the NTTF Secretary, explained in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos that this was because the federation did not send a team to qualifying championships held in April in Tipaza, Algeria.

Oguntade attributed the non participation at the qualifiers to failure of the federation to receive prompt and positive responses from the various companies it had approached for sponsorship.

“We are not part of the World Cadet Challenge due to our failure to be at the qualifying tournament. This is because we were not able to secure sponsors for the event,’’ he said.

NAN reports that the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and Africa Junior Championships organised the qualifiers for the World Cadet Challenge Championships.

Oguntade also noted that the proposed National Open Championships, planned for Abuja later in the month, would no longer hold, attributing its indefinite postponement to the forthcoming 18th National Sports Festival (NSF) holding from Nov. 27 to Dec. 9 in Lagos.

“The NSF is the centre of attraction now. It is taking precedence over our national programmes of which the national championship is a part,’’ he added.

Oguntade urged corporate organisations and ping-pong enthusiasts across the country to stake their money to sponsor the sport for players to have exposures at international circuits.

He also said regular participation at international events was all that players would require toward boosting their ranking in Africa and at the ITTF level. (NAN)