The sports ministry has confirmed that 90 athletes will represent the country at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia.

Nigeria, who placed eight with 11 gold 11 silver and 14 bronze at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, will feature in 10 sports at Gold Coast 2018.

They are athletics, basketball, wrestling, weightlifting, boxing, table tennis, gymnastics, para table tennis, para athletics, para powerlifting.

The national team will be accompanied by 43 team officials to the April 4-15 Games.

Nigeria will present 37 athletes for athletics, four for weightlifting, five male table tennis players, 12 wrestlers, one gymnast, two para table tennis players and two para athletics.

Sports minister Solomon Dalung, who met with the presidents of the 10 federations whose athletes will be taking part in the Games on Wednesday, said the meeting was to assess the participations for the Games, evaluate their prospects and finalise arrangements for the last phase of training.

“This is a down-to-earth meeting on our level of preparations. It is to convince me on how we will win medals based on the preparations we have made so far,” Dalung was quoted as saying in a statement by his media aide Nneka Anibeze.

“The meeting is intended for the federations to defend the athletes they are presenting to us, that we will be taking to this competition. Therefore, we must review and reappraise the level of our preparations and look at those grey areas.”

The Nigeria Basketball Federation Vice-President Babs Ogunade said the US- based players would only be available for camping two weeks to the opening of the Games Village.

Wrestling federation boss Daniel Igali expressed his confidence that his wrestlers would perform creditably following their performance at the recently-concluded African Wrestling Championships in Port Harcourt.
https://punchng.com/90-athletes-to-represent-nigeria-at-gold-coast-2018/