Lagos City Marathon: Nigeria not far from best Long Distance running Nations

The Best placed Nigerian Athlete at the 9th Lagos City Marathon, Adamu Shehu, has called for massive sponsorship if they are to bridge the gap between East African Runners and Nigerian Athletes.

Shehu was the first Nigerian to cross the finish line and in a chat with www.brila.net, the Plateau-based runner revealed Nigeria is not far behind and are only lacking in experience and training.

“There is no difference because when you look at Nigerians we came with different teams unlike the Kenya’s that train in their team,” Adamu Shehu stated.

“In a team you will discover more then 200 Athletes training together, here maybe you will discover five here, three there but Marathon is team work; you alone cannot do it, that is why we want notable Nigerians to get this elite athletes both male and female to sponsor them go and train in Kenya in preparation for 2024 Lagos City Marathon.

“When Kenyans go back in two weeks they will start preparing for next year’s Lagos city Marathon, we have to get People that can sponsor us to go to Kenya and run with the this first class athletes, train together live together so that we can learn their techniques.

“They’re human beings like us, we can do it. We are very strong the only thing we are lacking is experience.

Edwin Kibet of Kenya was the winner of the 2023 Gold-Label Lagos City Marathon, after running a time of 2:14:06.

The Kenyan became the fifth Athlete from the East African nation to win the tournament, it will be recalled that he won in 2016, 2017, 2020 and 2021.

He also went home with the prize of fifty thousand Dollars for his dominance in the 42km race.