D’Tigress stars ready for Rio Olympics ticket battle

In from Nifemi Daniel … .

Nigeria women senior basketball team, the D’Tigress star players have maintained that the team has all it takes to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Leading the charge were Olayinka Sanni, who averaged 6.9 points per game in Cameroon, and Helen Ogunjimi, who had the second highest three-point shooting percentage (48.6 percent) at AfroBasket Women 2015.

The team which finished third at the2015 AfroBasket will participate in next year’s FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament billed for June 13-19 June, 2016 with 12 teams getting a second chance to battle for the five remaining places available for the Olympics.

Nigeria as well as AfroBasket Women 2015’s runners-up Cameroon will represent Africa in the tournament, which also is set to include France, Spain, Belarus, Turkey, Cuba, Argentina, Venezuela, New Zealand, China and Korea.

“Our faith is still there. Our hope right now is that of a road to redemption, hopefully that qualification gets us there. It doesn’t matter how we get there as long as we do,” Sanni told FIBA.com.

Read also: AfroBasket: D’Tigress wallop Algeria 79-49

According to Ogunjimi, the Rio Games are not that far from the team’s capabilities.

“We have to qualify for the Olympics. I believe it is possible,” she said.

President of Umar Tijjani, Chairman of the Nigerian Basketball Federation has expressed confidence in the players’ optimism, pledging to do everything in the institution’s power to make their Olympic dream come true.

“We have an opportunity to expose the girls early in the year and then give them a decent and legitimate chance to qualify as one of the five teams from the FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament. Nothing is impossible,” he said.

“My hope is when the team goes, they repeat what the men’s team did in 2012 [at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament to book a place for the London Olympics],” he added.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now