Kunle Adewale
The Chika Chukwumerije Sports Foundation (CCSF) will be organising the 6th edition of the CCSF Invitational Taekwondo Open on Saturday, August 12, at the Indoor Basketball Hall of the M.K.O Abiola National Stadium Abuja.
100 youth athletes, comprising 64 males and 36 females, from six Abuja based taekwondo clubs are confirmed for the event.
The FCT Taekwondo Association sanctioned event will deploy an electronic display scoring system while the competitors will compete in a round robin format to ensure participants get a lot of exposure and experience.
To engage spectators, organizers plan many surrounding activities including a free morning aerobic fitness class, setting up fun table tennis and video games areas and a bouncing castle for children. Vendors have also been engaged to provide food and drinks to spectators, and DJs will liven the atmosphere with music all day.
To cap off the day, an outdoor dance-off competition will help thrill FCT residents to a sports entertainment themed event.
The Beijing 2008 Olympic medalist and CCSF founder, highlighted the importance of fusing entertainment with sports to the development of grassroots sports in Nigeria.
“We want to organize an event that anybody would want to come to on a Saturday morning in a summer holiday. The public longs for and deserve these kinds of programs regularly and sports has always been perfectly poised to satisfy this demand, while simultaneously developing sports at the grassroots.”
Nigeria’s National Captain to the London 2012 Olympics and former African Champion promised a well-organized event that would be memorable for both competitors and spectators.
“We want young athletes to be properly exposed, so it is important for officiating to be fair and transparent and operations to run without hitches. We also want our guests who come to the event to have a great time experiencing various things.”
Chukwumerije, who took a sabbatical after successfully guiding Nigeria’s second ever female Taekwondo Olympian, Elizabeth Anyanacho, to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics explained that the current target of his foundation.
“We have suspended our high-performance project after its successful 6-year run that cumulated in producing an Olympian, African Medalist and several National champions. My foundation will now focus on hosting sports entertainment events and using proceeds and donations to kickstart an orphanage project, which seeks to empower orphans through sports and computer skills acquisition. We will use our sports entertainment events to highlight our new focus”
For the Saturday tourney, medals will be awarded in 19 various categories, including eight kiddies, nine cadets and two junior categories.
The event is a test-run event for a bigger edition planned for December 2023.
