BY ADEYEMI ROBINSON-ADEFIOYE, LAGOS
The Head coach of Nigeria Table Tennis Federation, NASIRU BELLO has been appointed as an International Table Tennis Federation, ITTF, Instructor for Developmental programs for Africa by ITTF.
BELLO who obtained his High performance coaching Certificate in Table tennis at University of Halmstad in Sweden last year , told www.sunrisetimes.com.ng that his appointment by ITTF was based on his chart performance .
BELLO who led Team Nigeria Para Table tennis to Gold medal podium in Sydney 2000 Paralympics Games, Bronze medal podium in Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games and Glasgow 2015 in Scotland .The experienced coach who also coached the likes of ARUNA QUADRI to a Silver medal in the men’s singles event in the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia, attributed his appointment to hard work and focus.
In his words: “To start with, you have to be online to see your performance chart before you could be enrolled for the course. The course is the first ever course that ITTF would introduced to into the world,
“We were 12 coaches in numbers invited for the course in Sweden at the University of Halmstad last year. I gained a lot in that course, there were a lot of new techniques we were taught in the University .
“This is involves oral and objective examination, you have to read overnight, thank God I did very well in practical and I thank God today I obtained the certificate as ITTF High performance coach in Table Tennis”
BELLO who described the course as an eye opener and made it known that Sweden is the best place to learn Table tennis because it has produced world class players and the University of Halmstad is one of the biggest Universities in Europe with many Professors in the game.
“In Europe, Sweden is the highest ranked in Table Tennis where we have Jarid Wadner , Joghan Persson and so on, they were world class players in those days and up till now and University of the Halmstad is one of the biggest Universities in Europe” BELLO said.
“ In Table Tennis , they have a lot of Professors who taught us both in practical and theoretical aspect of the course. It really helped, like I told you in practical area they are very good and theory aspect at the same time they are superb, it helps a lot for you to upgrade your knowledge, so that you can impact the current technical aspect of it on your players”, he advised.
“That is what i did when we went to Tunisia, we went with little players and all of them qualified for the Olympics, it is a good experience to me and after we came back i got my Certificate, I was graded in February, I was also appointed by International Table Tennis Federation, ITTF, as Instructor in Development of Table Tennis in Africa, especially in Western region”.
According to BELLO who isfondly called “Alakoro”, “all these achievement was not a day achievement” adding that one has to work towards it, which means only hard work and focus to get to that level.
