The maiden Lagos Athletics Relays Championship scheduled for Teslim Balogun Stadium kicks off on Friday April 24 with over N8m at stake at the two-day tournament.
Over 50 schools in Lagos as well as states like Delta, Kwara, Ogun, Ondo including para military clubs like Nigeria Custom Service (NCS) and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) will be part of the competition.
According to the organizers, the championship is one of the series of tournament under the Lagos International Sports Classics, which has hosted and still hosting tournaments in table tennis, badminton, taekwondo, swimming, golf among others.
In all, nine events will be jostled for in the junior and senior categories with the grand finale holding on Saturday April 25 at same venue.
For the chairman, Lagos State Athletics Association, Olatunde Makanju, the competition is aimed at igniting the interest of students in athletes, adding that the maiden edition would provide avenue for the state to be hosting the best legs across the globe.
“From our observation, it has been discovered that athletics is going down in schools and we feel staging this kind of event would help to ignite the interest of the students to embrace the sport. Aside this, we are hoping that the tournament will become a world class event with the best athletes across the world coming to Lagos to compete in the prize-money competition. For us in Lagos, we are always setting the pace and we hope that this maiden edition will be a springboard for the sport to win more disciples and have more young people competing,” Makanju said.
Over 50 secondary schools in Lagos will compete in the junior division with athletes taking part in events like 4x100metre, 4x200m, 100 as well as Swedish relay in 100, 200, 300 and 400m. for their efforts, the top three athletes in each event will go home with N50, 000, N30, 000 and N20, 000 respectively.
In the senior category, states, clubs, tertiary institutions, military, para military organizations and foreign countries will compete in 4×100, 4×200, and 4×400, as well as sprint medley like 100, 200, 400 and 800metres. N120, 000, N80, 000 and N50, 000 respectively will be won by the top three athletes in each event.
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