Five-time Olympian calls for table tennis league

Offiong Edem, a five-time Olympian and Nigerian table tennis star, has called for a functional table tennis league in the country to enable players to prevail in international competitions.

She said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the ongoing ‘Fourth Offiong Edem Table Tennis Competition’.

The competition was held at the Canaan City Table Tennis Hall, UJ Esuene Stadium, Calabar.

According to her, it will be difficult for the nation’s table tennis players to compete favourably outside the country without a functional league at home.

NAN reports that Edem is ranked number one in Nigerian female table tennis and 113 worldwide. She will represent Nigeria at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

According to her, the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation has to do something about having a league in the nation like it is in football, as such a league would further enhance the quality of Nigerian players.

”We just came back from Benghazi in Libya, where the Canaan Table Tennis Club of Calabar represented Nigeria in the African Club Championship, and we lost in the final to an Egyptian team, Petrojet.

”Clubs like Petrojet of Egypt play in an organised league that keeps the players in shape; they don’t need their players to go out, and Nigeria needs to borrow a leaf from this.

”We can’t have table tennis clubs in Nigeria with no league where they can play competitively regularly to keep them in shape,” she said.

Speaking further, she said she was grateful to represent Nigeria again at the Olympics in Paris and revealed that the race for qualification was stiff as other Nigerian players were also improving.

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The 38-year-old right-hander and six-time African Games gold medal winner started her Olympic journey at the 2004 Games in Athens and then had to wait eight years for her second stint at the 2012 Games in London. She made it three at the Rio Games in 2016 and the 2020 Games in Tokyo.

She said she believed Nigeria would return from the Olympics in Paris with better results. Edem disclosed that the players representing the country in Paris would embark on a training tour of Germany for two weeks to get them focused on the task ahead of the team.

NAN