National Open Set To Debut In Nigeria

The National Sports Commission (NSC) is looking at introducing another national sports competition, separate from the National Sports Festival (NSF) where the elite sports, some of the sports NSC consider as the ‘A’ sports will feature.

This was disclosed yesterday by the Director-General of NSC, Dr Patrick Ekeji during the presentation of report on the bid for the 2014 National Sports Festival at the Presidential Hotel, Port Harcourt.

According to Dr Ekeji, the NSC has been looking at how it can improve the sports festival. “We needed to look at the definition of the National Sports Festival and come up with programmes and the idea of a National Open come up,” said the D-G.

He explained that if the Open comes on stream, only about eight sports will be competed for.

“It will not be for all, they are the sports the National Academicals Sports Committee will be organising, about eight of them considered to belong to the “A” Class.

He further said that if Nigeria is to benefit from the idea, then the National Open would come early in the first quarter of an Olympic year, and the athletes (winners) that would emerge may be the likely ones that will represent the country at that Olympic Games.

That is, at the end of the open, Nigerians will already know the athletes that will fly her flag at the Olympics.

He also disclosed that efforts were on to redefine the National Sports Festival and probably make it an age-grade level event, since one of the major objectives of the festival is developmental, catching them young.

Dr Ekeji said that plans for programmes and innovations for sports were still on as the NSC tries to improve on what is on ground already.

On the 2014 bid, he described the bidding innovation as a good development that will only see committed states hosting the festival.

Lagos is scheduled to host the 18th edition next year while Dr Ekeji decided to reveal the 19th editions’ host in 2014 during the closing ceremony of the ongoing Garden City Games 2011.

However, Tidesports gathered that Cross River State is among the front runners for the 2014 fiesta.