Nigeria’s senior men’s national rugby team, The Black Stallions, will kick off their campaign for Paris 2024 Olympics qualifiers with the first match against Ghana in Mauritius.
The Black Stallions’ target is to finish in the top three and move on to the next phase of qualifiers at the Africa Cup Sevens in Zimbabwe.
The team will then take on Burundi which would be a crucial game before tackling Democratic Republic of Congo in their last pool A match.
The preparation
Nigeria began its preparation for the Olympics qualifiers in early May with the convergence of players based in the United Kingdom under coach Temitope Okenla.
While newly appointed Black Stallions Coach Steve Lewis has been supervising other players based in Europe, United States of America, and Nigeria.
The bulk of the selected players are expected to go into a closed camp before travelling to Mauritius for the first phase of the qualifiers.
Participating Countries
Twelve Countries will converge in Mauritius on June 24-25 to compete for the available four slots in the Africa Cup Sevens slated for Zimbabwe in September.
Other participating countries are Mauritius, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Botswana, Cameroun, Algeria, Burundi, Congo, Lesotho, Sénégal, and Egypt.
If Nigeria claims one of the four tickets from Africa, it will be the first time they will participate in the Rugby event since the sport was included at the 2016 Summer Rio Olympics.
