The Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) has announced that the 2016 National Trials will be merged with the Confederation of Africa Athletics (CAA) Grand Prix, with both events slated to hold between July 7 to 9 in Sapele, Delta State.
It was revealed at a Press Conference in Lagos on Wednesday that the trials will hold on the 7th and 8th respectively, while the Grand Prix also known as the Warri Relays, will take place on Saturday, July 9th.
Following the paucity of funds which affected Nigeria’s participation at the recently concluded African Senior Athletics Championships, there had been rumours that the National Championships had been shelved.
Nigeria eventually finished 3rd overall on the medals table in Durban behind hosts South Africa and Kenya – their worst outing in a decade.
That notwithstanding, athletes will be relieved to know that the Trials will be taking place after all, as the championship will be used to select athletes that will represent the country at the forthcoming Olympic Games in Rio.
However, it was communicated that certain standards must be met before an athlete can qualify to compete in Sapele. The only events without standards are the long distances.
For instance male athletes must have at least clocked 10.75s to compete in the 100m, while their female counterparts must have posted 11.80s to qualify for the competition. For the 200m, male sprinters must have returned a time of 21.55s, and the women, 24.50s.
Most of the country’s relay teams are yet to run the qualifying time for the Olympics, as Nigeria did not field teams in the men and women’s 4x100m relays, as well as the men’s 4x400m relay at the African Championships.
The competition in Durban would have been the perfect avenue to seal Nigeria’s relay spots in Rio, but only the women’s 4x400m team was in action, with the quartet of Omolara Omotosho, Regina George, Yinka Ajayi and Patience Okon-George taking Silver behind South Africa.
As such, the AFN will be hoping to use the Warri Grand Prix as perhaps the last avenue to secure the teams’ tickets to Brazil even as the qualification deadline of July 11 draws closer.
It was also stated at the media parley that the list of athletes going for next month’s IAAF World Junior Championships in Poland will be released by the 4th of July.
how and where can we find the names of athletes that will compete
You can check our latest post where we published the list of athletes that qualified for the National Trials.