Nigeria’s table tennis poster boy, Quadri Aruna, Offiong Edem, Olajide Omotayo and Fatimo Bello will begin the battle against continental heavyweights in a quest to grab the 2024 ITTF African Cup and Olympics tickets.
The quartet selected by the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) will serve as the country’s flag bearers at the 2024 ITTF African Cup and Olympics Qualification Tournament taking place in Kigali, Rwanda from May 12- 18.
Ahead of the tournament, each country is expected to present two male and two female players for the African Cup while Egypt as the defending champions in men and women will present three players in each category. However, the host Rwanda will present four male and four female players.
In the list of participants released by the continental table tennis ruling body, African Table Tennis Federation (ATTF), Omar Assar of Egypt as the men’s singles defending champion will be joined by her compatriot – Hana Goda who will also be defending her title in the women’s singles.
Aruna who was a finalist at the 2022 edition held in Lagos, Nigeria, suffered an injury in the final to forfeit the match to Assar after coming back from the brink of defeat to level up.
The Nigerian who has dropped to 19th place in the ITTF ranking is hoping to use the tournament to climb his way back to the top of the world rating but will again be facing a Herculean task against the Egyptian trio of Assar, Mohamed El-Beiali and Youssef Abdel-Aziz.
Omotayo who emerged as the 2019 African Games champion will be looking forward to another showdown against some of the finest African stars while Edem who won silver medal at the 13th African Games will be looking forward to entrenching her performance in Kigali.
Bello, a finalist at the 2022 edition who performed below-par in Ghana will look forward to redeeming herself as well.
At the 2024 Paris Olympics Qualification Tournament, Aruna will be eyeing his fourth Olympic Games appearance when the event kicks off on May 16 at the BK Arena in Kigali as Egypt will not be competing having already picked their tickets at the 2023 African Championships in Tunisia.
