Cyclist Ese Ukpeseraye, who recently represented Nigeria at the Paris Olympics, has explained the difficulties she and other cyclists face that impede their preparation for competitions.
Speaking with cyclingnews.com after the global sporting event, Ukpeseraye said Nigeria has Africa’s best velodrome but it is always rented for social events by sports administrators in the country.
The MKO Abiola National Stadium in Abuja has a velodrome for indoor cycling among other facilities.
“We have a very beautiful track. Our track is the best in Africa, but we don’t use it. They don’t give us the permission,” Ukpeseraye said.
“Sometimes we have competition and we want to train in the velodrome but there is a party there and they say we cannot use it, so we take our bikes and we go home. When we wanted to go to Glasgow for the World Championship, we have to be training on the track. But unfortunately, we cannot use the track, because they are using it for parties.”
Ukpeseraye was a surprise entry into the women’s sprint events in Paris. She was at the games for the women’s road race but was added to the track roster after Egypt was disqualified over an infringement.
The German team, who had previously helped out Ukpeseraye’s team in the 2022 UCI Track World Championships when they didn’t have aero bars, gave Ukpeseraye a bike to race with.
The Nigrian rode 200m in a respectable time — 11.652 seconds despite not training on a velodrome for more than a year.
Ukpeseraye said she was so surprised by the time that she felt as happy as if she had won the race.
She also hoped her performance would lead to the velodrome being set aside for its intended purpose.
