By GIWA Shile
National powerlifter Folashade Oluwafemi-Ayo says she is very sure her performance will boost the country’s haul of medals at the 2019 World Para-Powerlifting Championships holding in Lagos from Jan. 28.
Oluwafemi-Ayo said on Saturday in Lagos that her ambition was to further break her world record at the three-day championships.
The powerlifter in the +86kg category holds the current world record, which she broke at the 2017 World Para-Powerlifting Championships in Mexico.
She won a gold medal for Nigeria after breaking the world record in that category set in 2014 by another Nigerian, Loveline Orji.
Oluwafemi-Ayo said that preparations for the Lagos championships had began with the “highly commendable’’ early commencement of camping.
“Camping for the championships opens from this weekend and that is good for the athletes.
“This will enable us to concentrate and improve on our abilities, so that Nigeria can win many more laurels from this championships in comparison to what we had in the past ones,’’ she said.
The powerlifter said that early camping for the championships was significant.
“Ìt shows that Nigeria, in spite of being the host country, was taking things seriously,’’ she said.
Also, Taiwo Tolulope, a male para-powerlifter who is equally in the national camp for the world championships, said Nigeria would surely dominate the medals table with the early camping programme.
“It is very beneficial that we are going into camping for this championships now, because many of us have become rusty after the Christmas and New Year festivities.
“We need the level of concentration that early camping will give us.
“We particularly need it to burn off the calories we may have gained from enjoying ourselves during the festivities in the last three weeks.
“I highly commend our sports authorities and the committee in charge of para-powerlifting for this initiative,’’ the 80kg powerlifter said.
