The President of the National Olympic Committee of Sierra Leone (NOC-SL), Dr Patrick Coker revealed that when they took up office in 2013, one of their major priorities is to make sure they educate people as much as possible.
“One of the things that I said was that we are going to take the first term in office is to see, observe and learn. Glasgow was a learning process and it was also for participation”.
He added: “We are going to Rio later this year and it’s also for observation and participation. But this NOC you have now is thinking of Gold Coast and Tokyo; we will be going not for participation but to compete”.
Dr Coker said with that in mind they agreed that the only way Sierra Leone can compete for medals in big games is to produce athletes and these athletes are created by coaches.
That is the reason why they are doing their best to provide more coaching courses for associations.
“There are only two courses per year for any NOC. We lost two because of the Ebola. But when we went to Washington for the IOC meeting, I was able to talk to the President of IOC for him to help us further, that is why the Deputy Director of Sports said he is seeing so much happening in terms of capacitating the coaches,” Dr Coker noted.
He concluded that they are going to have a total of six courses possibly this year for different associations just to make sure that they train more coaches for future preparation.
By Bernard Turay
Friday May 06, 2016