The 7th edition of the Daniel Olukoya Youth and Junior Championships earlier scheduled to hold on Saturday, April 8th, 2017 has now been moved forward to Monday April 10th.
According to Olukayode Thomas, Head of Media and Communications for the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), the High-Performance Centre, Port Harcourt, remains the venue for the championships.
Thomas explained that the change in date was necessitated because of the ongoing qualifiers for the Nigeria University Games, NUGA taking place at the University of Port Harcourt.
“Yes, there is a slight change; we had to move the event to Monday due to the pre-NUGA activities that will drag into the weekend,” he stated.
With the new development, athletes from participating states and clubs are now expected to arrive on Sunday, April 9th for screening at the competition venue.
The AFN re-iterated that only athletes that pass the screening exercise will be allowed to take part in this year’s championships.
Expectations are high ahead of Monday’s meet in Port Harcourt as this edition of the D.K Olukoya Athletics Championships will be used to select athletes that will represent Nigeria at the African Junior Championships holding in Algeria from June 29th to July 2nd, 2017.
This year’s D.K Olukoya Championships is also expected to aid AFN in their selection of athletes to represent the country at the IAAF World Youth Championships and Commonwealth Youth Games taking place respectively in Kenya and the Bahamas later this year.
Raymond Ekevwo was among the shining stars of the 2016 edition of the competition at the Yaba College of Technology in Lagos where he won the men’s 100m in a time of 10.36s.
