Organisers of the Channels Track and Field Classics, a grassroots development programme for athletics, have revealed that the machinery has been put in place to fish out students over the age limit in the competition. The 2019 edition will hold on November 13 and 14 at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos.
The competition made its debut in Lagos last year with eight events for boys and girls. This year, the organisers have increased the number of events to 10, with a promise to go tough with Games Masters and Principals of schools, who want to achieve results through the use of ineligible or over-aged students.
Chairman of the Main Organising Committee of the Channels Track and Field Classics, Steve Judo said yesterday in Lagos that everything needed to make the second edition successful had been put in place.
“The 2019 edition of the Channels Track and Field Classics will hold for two days, and we are expecting over 62 schools in attendance. Our chairman, John Momoh, created the concept for this competition because he believes that the right place to discover talents is through school competitions.
“We have been doing it with the Channels Kids Cup for football, and now we are in athletics. We hope that with this type of competitions, Nigeria will be able to discover young athletes who will represent the country at major events like Olympic Games in the nearest future,” Judo stated.
Chairmen of the Technical Committee for the competition, ex-Olympian, Henry Amike, stated that their target was to see that the Channels Track and Field Classics produced athletes that would represent Nigeria at the 2024 Olympics.
“Hopefully, this competition should be able to produce athletes that will fly Nigeria’s flag at the 2024 Olympics Games because it takes about five or six years to produce an Olympic athlete. Next year, we might expand the competition to other states,” Amike stated.
According to him, the events to be competed for in this year’s edition are 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, (male and female) 100m hurdles for girls, 110m hurdles for boys, long jump, high jump, discuss, 4x100m relay and 4x400m relay.
The Channels Track and Field Classics is in collaboration with the Lagos State Government for students under the age of 17.
