As the clock ticks down to  the  2024 Paralympics Games, Paralympic Committee of Nigeria(PCN) has commenced camping exercises for its athletes.

The Pparalympic Games will hold between August 28th and September 8th, 2024 in Paris.

President, Paralympic Committee of Nigeria (PCN), Sunday Odebode revealed  that the para-athletes and Para Badminton players will be in Abuja for their camping exercise while powerlifters and para table tennis players will be in Lagos for the exercise.

“As you are all aware, the paralympic games is around the corner and we at PCN are not leaving any stone unturned to ensure adequate preparations for our athletes, hence the decision to commence camping in earnest.

“This will put our athletes in good shape during the games where we hope to excel and make the country proud.”

Commonwealth Games champion India, Kenya, Uganda, Benin Republic, Togo, South Africa and hosts – Nigeria are among the teams that will compete at this year’s ValueJet ITTF Lagos Para Open which serves off on Thursday October 12.

It will run till Saturday 14 at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of Teslim Balogun Stadium.

Speaking at the press conference held on Tuesday in Lagos, Chairman of the Local Organising Committee (LOC), Sunday Odebode said the tournament has received the full sanction by the world table tennis ruling body while the tournament has helped to unearth more top stars for Nigeria.

Specifically, Odebode said that most of the athletes that qualified for Paris 2024 Paralympic Games at the recent African Championships held in Giza, Egypt are products of the tournament while more players would emerge as majority of them are now been classified by ITTF.

“We are so happy that the tournament is now Factor 20 on ITTF calendar, which means players aiming to qualify for the Paralympic Games can come and compete and pick the necessary points to shore up their ranking.

“Now that it is fully sanctioned by ITTF, we are hopeful that more countries will identify with the tournament in near future.

“For this year, we have six countries including Nigeria competing and we are going to have the singles, mixed doubles and doubles events to prepare the players ahead of the Paralympic Games,”        Odebode who is also the President of Paralympic Committee of Nigeria (PCN) said.

In his remarks, ITTF Para Events and Classification Manager Pablo Perez lauded the organisers of the annual tournament as an avenue to develop the players and the sport.

“I am so excited that this tournament has continued to improve the Nigerian players and this was reflected in their performance at the just concluded African Championships where nine of them qualified for the Paralympic Games in Paris next year.

“I can see that more players are coming through and this is the result of regular tournaments for players and this has confirmed Nigeria as the best in Africa and one of the top teams in the world.

“I am so excited returning to Nigeria again and I hope that more teams and countries will be coming to be part of the tournament following the exploits of Nigerian players in major competitions across the world,” Perez said.

For the Head of Business Development, Valuejet, Temitope Ajijola, the company would continue to support para sport especially with the impressive display of the athletes in Egypt where nine of them picked their tickets to Paris 2024.

“Apart from our businesses, sports remain our second priority and with what we are seeing in para table tennis, we are encouraged to do more and we are committed and we will continue to support the sport across the country,” he said

Nigeria emerged the overall champion of the 2023 ITTF African Para Championships which ended on Saturday September 23, 2023 in Giza, Egypt.

The three-day tournament had hosts – Egypt – Algeria, Nigeria, Mauritius, Cameroon, South Africa, Kenya and Cote d’Ivoire competing in the singles, doubles and mixed doubles events.

Nigeria carted home 12 gold medals to dethrone Egypt as the new para table tennis champion in Africa. The Nigerians asserted themselves as the new heavyweights in the continent’s para table tennis by dominating the singles event to pick up most of the tickets to the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

From the 14 tickets available for the Paralympic Games, Nigeria picked nine while Egypt settled for five in the singles events. However, the host team dominated the doubles and mixed doubles events with five gold medals while Nigeria picked two.

In the overall medals table, Nigeria picked 12 gold while Egypt won 10 to surrender their dominance to the West African nation.

President, African Table Tennis Federation (ATTF), Khaled El-Salhy commended all the participating teams and described the tournament as a success, especially with the facilities and hospitality provided by the Egyptian Table Tennis Federation (ETTF).

“I am so happy that we have an improvement in the participation this year, especially with the number of countries that featured in this year’s tournament. The players gave a good account of themselves; they showed their quality judging from the matches.

“I congratulate the ETTF and the government of Egypt for being good hosts and I hope our players will make the continent proud when the Paralympic Games takes place next year in France.

“I must also thank the ITTF for their support and I hope other African countries will focus on para sports so that we can all be in tune with the ideals of the ITTF,” El-Salhy said.