Ex-international long jumper, Yusuf Alli has reiterated that Team Nigeria is fired up to win at least 16 gold medals (and possibly 20) at this year’s Commonwealth Games, which get underway on Thursday in Glasgow, Scotland, Sports247 reports.
The athletics guru and three-time Olympian, who is Nigeria’s Chef de Mission to the Glasgow 2026 Games, reasoned that the three weeks of intense pre-competition training the team had at Aberdeen Sports Village (ASV) has put them in good shape to win at least 16 gold medals.
Alli added that, after three weeks of preparation at the camp in Aberdeen, the delegation will on Tuesday move to the Games’ venue in Glasgow, where he believes the athletes will go all out to make Nigeria proud, especially with motivation from massive cash incentives promised them.
“The purpose of having this camping in Aberdeen is to allow the athletes stay focused, relax and make corrections on their mistakes. I can say we have realised that objective.
We will continue to strategise how to accomplish our plans of winning up to 16 gold medals or even more in Glasgow,” Alli stated.
His enthusiasm was boosted with details of monetary emoluments available to the atthletes, as disclosed by National Sports Commission (NSC) director of information and public relations, Dr Kehinde Ajayi, who stated that each athlete will get $200 daily allowance and up to $8,000 in total rewards for winning gold medals.
Dr Ajayi disclosed further that local camp allowances were increased to N5,000 for athletes and N7,500 for officials; while each athlete also got N500,000 in travel support under a new welfare and incentive package that was insistituted by the NSC heading into the Commonwealth Games.
She added that gold medalists will get $5,000, while silver gains $3,000 and $2,000 goes for bronze, plus an additional boost in how instant cash rewards will go for medal-winning athletes in the form of bonuses paid directly into their bank accounts; with the coaches also assured of adequate rewards.
In addition, each athlete will receive $200 per day during the competition, while coaches are assured of $250 per day, all of which Ajayi stressed are huge increases from the $150 and $200 that were paid during the Games’ last edition at Birmingham 2022.
“The Commission had earlier approved N250,000 for every athlete and official to cover transportation to the national camp in Abuja. An additional N250,000 was approved for each athlete and official to facilitate the early booking of return flights to their respective destinations after the Games.
“This means each athlete and official is entitled to a total of N500,000 in travel support under the new arrangement,” Ajayi affirmed in a statement, while pointing out that the payments, which began in Abuja continued at the training camp in Aberdeen and will be fully maintained throughout Glasgow 2026.
