Chairman beach volleyball committee of the Nigeria Volleyball Federation (NVF), Engr Musa Nimrod is confident that Team Nigeria will qualify for the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games’ men and women beach volleyball events.
Nigeria narrowly missed out qualification for beach volleyball event of the 2012 London Olympic Games, but Nimrod is of the belief that the rate at which the sport is gradually growing in Nigeria, qualifying for the Rio 2016 Olympics would help project the sport to Nigerians. “Beach volleyball is growing very fast in Nigeria, and we should now aspire to the next level, which is to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“We are the only country in Africa that is consistently producing under-age teams. Also in ranking we are number two in Africa and we have teams in the U-19 and 21 categories, and this was why we qualified last year for the World Youth Championship in Cyprus and the World Junior Championship in Canada,’’ he said.
He noted that the impressive performance of Nigeria’s beach volleyball team at the last African championship in Mauritius is an indication that the nation is making steady progress in beach volleyball.