By George Akpayen
The maiden edition of the Niger Delta Sports Festival scheduled to hold between April 3 and 12 this year in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State will feature 17 sports.
Athletics, Basketball, Boxing, Canoeing/Kayak, Football, Handball, Swimming, Table Tennis, Tennis, Weightlifting and Wrestling are the sports lined up for the first edition of the sports festival.
Others are Chess, Scrabble, Traditional Wrestling, Volleyball, Para Athletics and Para Powerlifting.
According to a release of featured sports, events and allocation of entries, athletics will have track and field events to be competed for in the men’s and women’s categories.
In the track events, there will be 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1,500m, 3,000m steeple chase, 5,000m, 100m hurdles and 110m hurdles.
The relay events will feature the men’s 4x100m, the women’s 4x100m, the men’s 4x400m and the women’s 4x400m.
Long jump, high jump, triple jump, javelin, shot put, discus and hammer are lined up for the field events.
There will be categories for men and women in boxing. In the men’s category, each state will have an athlete each in the 52kg, 63kg, 75kg, 81kg and 81kg+ class. Women’s boxing will have three categories of 51kg, 63kg and 75kg.
Four events will be up for contest in kayak. The 100m men’s singles, the 100m women’s singles, the 500m men’s singles and the 500m women’s singles are the events for kayak.
In canoeing, there will be singles and doubles events for men and women. The singles event will feature 100m for men and women as well as 200m for men and women. The men will compete in the 500m doubles while the women will also vie in the 500m doubles.
In swimming, the freestyle event will cover 50m, 100m, 200m and 400m while the back stroke will feature 50m, 100m and 200m. Swimming will also have categories in breast stroke, butterfly stroke, individual medley, freestyle relay for men and women as well as mixed medley.
Table Tennis will feature men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles as well as mixed doubles.
In wrestling, there will be freestyle and Greco Roman events for men and women while weightlifting will feature four weight class of 61kg, 73kg, 89kg ans 102kg in the men’s category and 49kg, 59kg, 71kg and 81kg classes in the women’s category.
State trials and selection are scheduled to begin in February ahead of the sports festival.
