By Olalekan Okusan
World and Olympic medalist Blessing Okagbare is among the top stars that will light up the Lagos Open Athletics Championships today at the Teslim Balogun Stadium.
The one-day meet is organized by Lagos State Athletics Association (LSAA) with the aim to give Nigeria relay team that chance to meet the qualification time for Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games as well as beat the June 29 deadline set by the World Athletics (WA).
The Nigeria relay teams (men and women) will again be competing against their counterparts from Senegal, Zambia, Cote d’Ivoire and Benin Republic in their quest to meet the qualification time set by WA.
Okagbare who is part of the women relay team will also be in action as well as hurdles specialist, Tobi Amusan and African record holder in women long jump Ese Brume.
According to Chairman of LSAA Solomon Alao, the tournament is part of the association’s programmes which would be a continuous event to unravel talents for the state and the nation.
“We are trying to support our athletes and give them an enabling environment to qualify for the Olympics. Nigeria deserves to be in the relay events at the Olympics and that’s what we are trying to achieve,” Alao said.
For the President of Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Tonobok Okowa, the LSAA team led by Alao must be commended for staging the tournament while assuring that the federation would continue to support states’ associations to help unearth talents from the grassroots.
Meet Director Yusuf Ali said the tournament would commence at 1:30 pm while promising a seamless organisation.
Apart from the Relay events, the events include the 5,000m, 400m hurdles, 100m, 800m, and 400m, among others.
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