By YANGE IKYAA
Ethiopian Airlines manager in Abuja, Senait Ataklet, has joined other dignitaries in the nation’s capital to see off the Nigerian Team leaving for Japan along with chairperson of the Nigerian Olympic Committee, Engr. Ahmed Gumel, and the Japanese ambassador to Nigeria.
The continent’s aviation giant also expressed its best wishes to the team in a statement signed by Shimeles Arage, who is the general manager (GM) of Ethiopian Airlines in Nigeria.
The second batch of Nigerian athletes departed on the 13th of July for Japan aboard Ethiopian Airlines, which is the airline of choice for Team Nigeria for the Tokyo Olympics and is also the only African airline that flies to Japan straight from the continent.
The Nigerian team will be competing in many sports, and the Nigerian minister of sports, Sunday Dare, was quoted as saying “as of today, Nigeria has qualified 61 athletes across nine sports for the Olympics and 22 athletes in four sports for the Paralympic Games.”
The breakdown of the sporting contingent was futher given as “Athletics-22, Badminton-3, Basketball-24, Canoe sprint-1, Gymnastic-1, Rowing-1, Taekwondo-1, TableTennis-1, and Wrestling-1 which sums up to 61, while for Paralympic Games we have; Para Athletics-5, Para Powerlifting-10, power rowing-1, and Para Table Tennis-6, summing up to 22.”
Ethiopian Airlines manager in Abuja, Mrs. Ataklet told the team leader “we are proud to fly Team Nigeria to Japan and we will be highly excited to help them bring the medals home after the games.”
