Rivers, FCT, Taraba Hold Sway In Badminton

Rivers, the FCT and Taraba are holding sway in the team events of the badminton competition at the 17th National Sports Festival in Port Harcourt as at Saturday.

The Badminton event commenced on Thursday at the Indoor Sports Hall of the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT).

The two states and the FCT won their first round matches in both the male and female categories of the competition.

In the men’s event, hosts Rivers beat Kwara 3-0, while Imo and Taraba also won 3-0 in their games against Borno and Cross River respectively.

The FCT also beat Plateau 3-1, Yobe beat Adamawa 3-1, Lagos beat Gombe 3-0, Ondo beat Delta 3-2, while Edo lost 1-3 to Ogun.

In the women’s category Rivers won Plateau 2-1 while FCT beat Lagos 2-0.

Also, Kwara beat Edo 2-0; Taraba won 2-1 against Imo, while Delta beat Ebonyi 2-0.

An official of the tournament, Dipo Popoola, said that the event could be concluded by yesterday.

“We are a bit behind schedule, and we want to ensure we play the final rounds of the team event by Sunday morning and end it all by afternoon.’’

Popoola said this would enable competition in the singles event to start today, latest.