All-Comers Meet Today
As part of efforts at putting athletes that would participate at the National Sports Festival in Benin City, Edo State in good shape the Athletics Federation of Nigeria has put in place an all-comers meet which will take place in Akure today.
AFN Secretary General, Adeniyi Beyioku says all arrangements for a hitch free competition have been concluded.
Two-time Nigeria 100m king, Ogho-Oghene Egwero; Making of Champions’ fast improving quartermiler, Ifeanyi Emmanuel Ojeli and multiple national 400m queen Patience Okon George will headline today’s Athletics Federation of Nigeria All-Comers competition at the Federal University of Technology, Akure.
The meet, the first in the calendar of the AFN this year is the only scheduled event for the athletes before next month’s National Sports Festival in Benin City, Edo state.
Egwero, whose 10.23 seconds run last year at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin ranks him the second fastest Nigerian in 2020 behind Divine Oduduru (10.10 seconds) also holds the fastest 100m time ran on Nigerian soil in the past year and he will be challenged for the first position by Idjesa Uruemu who ran 10.32 seconds in March last year to rank as the third fastest Nigerian for the season and Enoch Adegoke.
Adegoke’s 10.12 seconds performance in the blue ribband race in 2019 remains the fastest time achieved in the event on Nigerian soil since 2017 when Seye Ogunlewe ran the same time in Sapele, Delta state.
The experienced Egwero will however want to lay down the gauntlet early as the man to beat at the National Sports Festival next month.
In the men’s 400m,Ojeli will be the cynosure of all eyes not only as one of the two fastest home-based quartermilers in Nigeria last year but also as the only Nigerian 400m runner to break 46 seconds since June 2017 when two-time Nigeria champion Samson Nathaniel ran 45.23 seconds in Abuja.
