Prof Abel Toriola attended the University of Ife and
graduated with a first class honours to obtain a
BSc in Physical Education in 1980. He subsequently
completed his master’s and doctoral degrees from
the same institution also with distinction in 1983 and
1988, respectively.
In his academic career spanning over 27 years,
Prof Toriola has taught and conducted research at
university level in four African countries, namely
Botswana, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe. He
pioneered the BSc Physical Education Programme at
the University of Zimbabwe in 1995 and worked at
the University of Limpopo as professor and head of
the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education from 1998 to 2002. Currently, Prof Toriola heads
the Department of Sport, Rehabilitation and Dental Sciences at TUT.
His passion for research has led to numerous awards, achievements, grants and international
recognition. One success story is the leading role he played in the establishment of the Limpopo
Academy of Sport and the successful proposal he compiled to secure R1m from the National Lotteries
Distribution Trust Fund in order to run the academy successfully.
His love for sport is visible in his research projects and involvements, such as the one where he was a
research team leader at the All Africa Games Kinanthropometric Research Project, which did physical and
physiological measurements of elite African athletes at the Games held in Harare, Zimbabwe, and Abuja,
Nigeria.
Another mentionable project is when he was commissioned by the International Table Tennis Federation
in Lausanne, Switzerland, to carry out official experiments on the new table, called “longer reach table
tennis” that he had designed for the federation.
Prof Toriola’s field of expertise and research specialisation is health sciences, with the focus on sport
sciences.