17 June 2011
Ebonyi State Sports Council has promised a reward of N50,000 for every gold medal won by its athletes at the 17th National Sports Festival in Port Harcourt.
The Ebonyi Acting Director of Sports, Emmanuel Utobo, made the announcement on Tuesday at the opening of a closed camp for athletes participating in the Games.
Utobo, however, did not make any pronouncement on athletes who win silver or bronze at the festival.
He said that the gesture was the council’s way of motivating the athletes for excellence during the Games scheduled to hold from June 27 to July 10.
“In realisation of the immense contributions of the coaches in the overall performance of the athletes, the council would also reward coaches whose athletes win gold medals with the sum of N30,000.
“The state government, on its own, will also reward athletes who excel at the competition accordingly as it is determined to improve on the 36th position the state placed at the last festival in Kaduna in 2009,” he said.
Utobo noted that the closed camping exercise, which is the state’s final preparations for the festival, would see the athletes undergoing a four-day final screening.
“The final list of athletes who would represent the state would be made public after the trials and the last lap of preparations for the festival would commence immediately,” he said.
The acting director announced that a total of 89 athletes would undergo the screening for the 12 sporting events, which the state would be participating in.
“We decided to reduce the number of athletes to avoid a repetition of the ‘Kaduna 2009’ debacle where we fielded many athletes and performed poorly.
“Though we can still select all the athletes for a particular event if they perform to required standard.
“We are not vying to take first place at the competition but want to utilise our strengths in the various events to amass as many medals as possible,” he said.
Utobo advised the athletes on the dangers of using banned substances during the preparations and the competition itself, noting that the state would disown any athlete who failed a drug test.
Nnanna Nwanue, a badminton player, promised that the athletes would do their best to win laurels for the state, but called on the authorities to settle the issue of remuneration before the commencement of the festival.
AllAfrica – All the Time
Taken from:
Nigeria: Ebonyi Offers N50,000 for Gold Medallist at Sport Festival