Union Bank Football Club of Lagos have been crowned as the winners of the inaugural edition of the Metro Pro League.
The Ayo Filani-led Bankers defeated their Remo Stars counterparts 2-1 at the Agege Stadium, yesterday, to finish on 38 points after 18 Weeks of hostilities.
Bridge FC and Apapa Golden Stars were placed second and third with 32 and 30 points respectively.
Meanwhile, Union Bank’s prolific midfielder, Oghenovo Uzezi won for himself the Metro Pro League’ Players Award for the Month of May.
Uzezi’s brilliant display in May accounted largely for Union Bank FC’s winning the Metro Pro League title.
In a chat with the media men after the trophy presentation to the winners, the Metro Pro League, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Victor Akinyooye congratulated Union Bank FC for winning the title, just as he assured that the standard of the league will be sustained in the new season.
“Let me use this opportunity to commend Union Bank Football Club and other clubs for putting up a great display in the inaugural edition of the Metro Pro League. We hope the Champions will be given a great fight in the new season,” he concluded.
Commonwealth champion, Singapore, Egypt and Russia including 11 other nations have already been confirmed for the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Lagos World Tour tagged Nigeria Open holding this month.
According to the list of confirmed countries, other teams that will join host – Nigeria at the tournament scheduled to hold on June 23 to 26 at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of the Teslim Balogun Stadium are Benin, Congo Brazzaville, Congo DRC, Cameroun, Ghana, Libya, Luxembourg, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Togo and Tunisia.
Singapore’s Jing Yuan Yin will represent the Asian nation at the tournament and the junior sensation is expected to compete in the men’s and U-21 singles.
Also, Egypt has assembled a strong eight-man team led by the defending champion of the Lagos Classics, Omar Assar as well as current Africa’s Senior’s Cup champion, El-Sayed Lashin. His sibling, Khalid, Mohamed El-Beiali and Mohamed Elsobky in the men’s category, will also join Assar.
Also, the number one rated African female player in the world, Dina Meshref will lead the Egyptian women team and Nadeen El-Dawlatly, as well as Farah Abdel-Aziz will join her.
Russia’s flag will be hoisted by the duo of Vasilij Filatov and Irina Ermakova, while one of the top rated player in the world, Xialian Ni will represent Luxembourg in the championship.
According to the chairman, Main Organising Committee (MOC), Wahid Oshodi, efforts are in place to ensure that the standard of organization for this year’s competition is improved.
“A lot more of the same is expected this year and I must thank all the people that made the tournament such a great success in 2013.
The experience garnered by many members of MOC in staging various top class events in Lagos came to the fore. The support and encouragement of His Excellency, the Governor of Lagos State is probably the most important factor in putting this tournament together.
We also must thank our sponsors who are proving to be excellent partners. Of course our success last year has led to the African Table Tennis Federation (ATTF) giving us the hosting rights of the African Top 16 alongside the World Tour.
This means that we have a lot more to do. We are working very hard to ensure that once again, we raise the standard of the tournament and we are pleading with the fans to come to the stadium to see the best of our sport,” Oshodi said.
Jamaica’s 2011 World 100m champion Yohan Blake and USA’s 2000 Olympic 100m champion Maurice Greene are among the star athletes ‘past and present’ who will gather in the heart of New York City on Wednesday 11 June to support a demonstration of IAAF / Nestlé Kids’ Athletics.
Blake, the second fastest 100m runner of all-time, and Greene, who took three World titles at 100m and one at 200m and is the 6th fastest ever sprinter, will be in Herald Square on Broadway to help support the fun team event for school children of 9-10 years.
The kids, from local schools in New York, will be split into 6 teams and take part in a competition of about 70 minutes. This series of 7 fun activities (2 x jump; 2 x run; 2 x throw; 1 x endurance) cover the core skills of athletics, ‘run, jump, throw’.
Joining Blake and Greene as team captains will be fellow star athletes USA’s 2012 Olympic pole vault champion Jenn Suhr and Australia’s Sally Pearson*, the 2011 World and 2012 Olympic 100m hurdles champion.
Greek pole vaulter Ekaterini Stefanidi, who appropriately for this event is a former World Youth champion, and Jamaica’s World and Olympic sprint medallist Warren Weir are also captains.
Herald Square, located between 34th and 35th streets, one block from the Empire State Building, will be the setting for an afternoon of track and field street action.
Suhr will be especially busy as the afternoon’s proceedings begin with a women’s pole vault featuring the London 2012 Olympic Games champion. Approximately two hours later IAAF / Nestlé Kids’ Athletics will commence.
IAAF / Nestlé Kids’ Athletics demonstration is one of the lead-in promotions to the adidas Grand Prix, the sixth leg of the 2014 IAAF Diamond League which takes place on Saturday 14 June in Icahn Stadium, Randall’s Island, New York.
IAAF Kids’ Athletics | Nestlé Healthy Kids, the flagship development project of the IAAF’s School / Youth programme, is one of the biggest grassroots development programmes in the world of sports.
The International Olympic Committee highlights IAAF / Nestlé Kids Athletics as a case study example of good practice for other international federations – click here
Nestlé, which is the world’s leading nutrition, health and wellness company with 339,000 employees worldwide, became the main sponsor of Kids’ Athletics in January 2012 agreeing a five-year sponsorship with the IAAF.
The IAAF’s objectives for Kids’ Athletics, which has so far been activated in more than 130 of the IAAF’s 212 national Member Federations worldwide, are to make athletics the number one participation sport in schools, promoting a balanced and healthy lifestyle, and attracting the potential sports stars of tomorrow.
The Golden Eaglets have been accorded an heroic welcome by students and staff of Hope Waddell Training Institute in Calabar as the team’s training resumes in full swing.
Following series of renovation and upgrade of facilities in Calabar ahead of the upcoming National Sports Festival in November, the Golden Eaglets were drafted to the ground of the historic 119-year-old institute by the ever-supportive Officials of Cross River State FA.
The Team had a first feel of the pitch on Monday evening and their arrival has indeed elicited huge interest within the school community.
Coach Baron Ikechukwu Okeke, the facility manager at the school, described the coming of Golden Eaglets as exciting, adding that it would inspire their young footballers.
“We are really happy to have you here,” said Baron an alumni of the school who incidentally assumed duties about three months ago.” We are actually doing our best to revive the standard of sport which the school was actually noted for.
“The school has a good football team and most of our youngsters would have the opportunity of learning one or two things by watching the Golden Eaglets at close quarters,” he declared.
Coach Emmanuel Amuneke meanwhile, has said he was impressed with the response of the players to the training even as he enjoined them to be up and doing.
“We just have to continue pushing ourselves because that is the only way we can achieve our target,” stated the former FC Barcelona winger.” You need to be in good condition before you can play good football and you have to observe enough rest in between the training sessions.”
At the moment, the team trains for about two hours twice daily with the morning session starting as early as 6:30am in order not to distract the students while the evening’s is fixed at 4:00pm.
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