Abuja agog for National Youth Games

The youth games is for only athletes who are below the ages of 17 years and is meant to serve as a hunting ground for budding athletes.Consequently, youths from the 36 states of the federation including the federal Capital territory will have the opportunity to showcase their talents in sports. The games which suffered several […]

The youth games is for only athletes who are below the ages of 17 years and is meant to serve as a hunting ground for budding athletes.
Consequently, youths from the 36 states of the federation including the federal Capital territory will have the opportunity to showcase their talents in sports.
The games which suffered several postponements will begin on Sunday with an elaborate opening ceremony at the Abuja National stadium and end on December 15.
This maiden edition will feature 14 sports namely: boxing, badminton, handball, squash, taekwondo, track and field, weightlifting, basketball, football, para-powerlifting, table tennis, tennis, volleyball and wrestling.
The chairman of the Main Organising committee and Director of Grassroots sports development in the National Sports Commission, Malam Alhassan Yakmut said a football match to be played on the day of the opening ceremony will kick start the games.
He told SHOT! that due to unavoidable circumstances, the arrival date was moved from an earlier date to Friday (yesterday). He also said registration and screening of athletes will commence today.
Going by the statistics made available by Yakmut, the games is being attended by 1,989 male athletes, 1,221 female athletes, 601 coaches, 376 accompanying officials and then 403 medical crew and administrative staff.
This brings the total to 4,472 and the Director said the medical department of the National Sports Commission is going to use 115 medical staff to cover the games.
Most football events and athletics will hold at the mainbowl of the Abuja national stadium but most outdoor events would be staged at the package B of the Abuja National stadium.
In order to discourage cheating and use of mercenaries, the minister of sports had announced that there will be no medals for winners as only certificates of participation would be given to athletes.
According to the minister, if medals were to be awarded, it will make nonsense of the games as states would do everything possible to win medals in order to get a good placing on the table.
Going by the spirit behind the games, it is expected that as a development programme, states would come to the party with athletes who are still in primary or secondary schools. However, from past experiences, there are concerns that the usual win by all means syndrome will creep in and participating states would come along with either over-aged athletes or mercenaries.
Although this cannot be eradicated completely at the games, most states have promised to make use of their home groomed athletes to compete at the games. Such states see the games as an opportunity for them to showcase the products of their grassroots sports development programmes.
Speaking to SHOT!, the Executive Chairman of Gombe State Sports Commission, Malam Farouk Yarma said his state is going to make use of the teen athletes that were discovered during the state Inter-primary and secondary schools games.
He said his state is not in Abuja to win the games by all means but to expose the young athletes to competition at the national level.
Yarma said if participating states will avoid cheating at the games, the initiative will help in discovering talented athletes who would be groomed to replace the country’s aging athletes.
“Like I keep saying Gombe State is not going to hire athletes to compete in the games. This is a developmental programme and we are relying solely on the athletes we discovered during the Inter-primary and secondary schools games in the state.
“We want to use this opportunity to expose these budding athletes to competition at the national level. We hope that other states too would embrace fairness and not resort to using mercenaries to win by all means.
“I support this initiative by the National Sports Commission. If properly organised, the games would help the different sports federation replace aging athletes with potential world beaters”, he said.
On his part, the Commissioner of sports in Benue State, Egbiri Idaah also said the state is fully ready to participate in the National Youth Games.
He told SHOT! that after hosting the zonal eliminations, his state athletes were camped and given enough training for the challenges ahead.
Idaah also said Benue State is not making use of hired hands but athletes that the state sports council coaches identified and selected during Inter-schools sports.
“Our athletes are home grown. We do not believe in using mercenaries because our state is blessed with abundant talents.
“One of the reasons I do not support the idea of hiring athletes to represent my state is that after representing us they will leave and we would be back to square one. I look at them as mercenaries and must go to the highest bidder in future”.
Idaah therefore said Benue State is not out to win everything at the games but ensure that her athletes make maximum use of the opportunity offered by the games.
Experiences have shown that similar laudable programmes have suffered poor organisation and age cheating. However, the man in charge of the National Youth games, Yakmut said such vices would be brought down to the barest minimum.
“No human organisation can be perfect and devoid of such things but we have put in place different committees that we believe will help in addressing these challenges. We hope to have hitch- free games so that in the end, we would achieve our set goals”.