By Uzor Odigbo
Over 80 Secondary and 10 Special Sports schools in Edo State have registered to participate in the 4th edition of the U-15 Eyoto Athletics Championships billed to commence on Thursday Dec.7th, 2023 at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin City.
The catch them young competition under the umbrella of the Eyoto Foundation Sports Academy is meant to offer a platform for school kids to exhibit their sporting talents and at the same time expose them to international and local scholarship in pursuance of their academic career.
Events include boys and girls 100m, 200m, 400m, long jump, high jump, javelin, 4x100m and 4x400m relays. Dafe Sports, wheelchair races, relay and mix relays.
“We are expecting over a 100 schools from across the State and every arrangement has been made for their accommodation and feeding, no kid would be sleeping in the open,” said Felix Idahosa who is the Eyoto Foundation Sports Academy president.
“The best overall school will get prize of N100,000 and a giant trophy, for the individuals races we have N10,000 as cash prize for each event and further more 10 best athletes would be eligible for scholarship and also receive a pair of running shoes, all the participating kids will get branded t-shirts.
“Apart from this prizes; we are also working to have games masters in some of these schools, because we discovered there are no games masters to put these kids through the rudiments of sports in their locality.”
He said that the championships is part of the Eyoto Foundation’s responsibility to give back to the society and the system, which gave them a leeway to achieve their life ambitions.
Apart from sports and academics, the Eyoto Foundation is also conducting medical missions to Edo State.
Other members include Festus Idahosa Erese who is vice president, Sonny Okundolor who is Secretary and former national shot put thrower Friday Enoye who is the treasurer. Expectedly, Eyoto executives are on ground for the Championship.
Edo State athletics head coach Mutiu Oluwa said productions of the Eyoto championships and those of the Princess Mabel Madojiemu Schools Championships have benefited Edo as was seen at the last National Youth Games.
“Our athletics team was formed majorly from the Eyoto and Madojiemu championships. We paraded the youngest team at the NYG and the beautiful thing is that they were in finals of their events.
“For us in Edo, it is not about winning but developing the athlete and we have data base of young athletes from these competitions we can work on for the future.
“One of the athletes from the Eyoto championships, Precilia Oshonoghor represented Nigeria at the last CAA U-18/U20 Championships in Zambia and we are going to have more athletes coming up.”