Rugby: Nigeria To Battle Ghana In Olympic Qualifiers

By Lekan Sowande, Abuja.

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Nigeria’s senior men’s national rugby team, the Black Stallions, will kick-off their campaign for Paris 2024 Olympic qualifiers with the first game against Ghana in Mauritius.

The qualifiers, scheduled to hold in June 2023, will witness Nigeria’s Black Stallions square up against Ghana, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo in pool A schedule.

The Black Stallions will be hoping to cause another upset by making it to the Olympics after shocking the world in 2014 by qualifying for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

After Ghana, Nigeria will take on Burundi which would be crucial before tackling Democratic Republic of Congo in their last pool A match.

Nigeria began their preparation for the Olympic qualifiers in early May with convergence of players based in the United Kingdom under the watchful eyes of Temi Okenla, while newly appointed Black Stallions coach Steve Lewis has been supervising players based in Europe and United States of America.

The bulk of the selected players are expected to go into close camping before travelling to Mauritius for the first phase of the qualifier.

Twelve Countries will converge in Mauritius on June 24th – 25th, 2023, to compete for the available four slots in the Africa Cup Sevens slated for Zimbabwe in September. Participating countries includes; Mauritius, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Botswana, Cameroun, Algeria and Nigeria.

Others include; Burundi, Congo, Lesotho, Sénégal and Egypt.

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