Nigerian Olympic judoka departs for African camp

LAGOS, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Nigeria's judo sole flag bearer to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Vivian Yusuf, will depart the country this week for Casablanca, Morocco, where the African training camp is held, an official with the Nigeria Judo Federation has said.

Bashir Bassey, National judo head coach, told local media that the Casablanca camp is at the instance of African Judo Union in conjunction with the International Judo Federation (IJF).

He said AJU and IJF were doing this to enhance African judokas' performance, which has been adjudged not-too-impressive in the past.

According to him, Yusuf will move with the other African flag bearers to Spain, Portugal, France and Japan for the four-nation training tour that will be the final lap of preparation for the Olympics.

"The exercise is generally aimed at helping the African judokas put up good performance because their performance in the past has not been encouraging," he said.

He added that head coaches of countries whose athletes are Olympic bound would be allowed access to their wards to enable them keep in touch with and apprise the training regiment their wards were exposed to.

Yusuf won a silver medal in the 78kg female category at the recently concluded African Judo Championships in Casablanca, Morocco. Bronze medallists in the same championship, Justina Agatahi (62kg) and Esther Augustine (63kg), did not qualify for the Olympics.