National Youth Games: NSC meets states directors of sports

National Sports Commission, NSC's top shots
are set to meet with directors of sports from the 36 States to ginger interest on the
upcoming maiden National Youth Games billed
for December 5-15 in Abuja.

Most of the States citing paucity of funds are yet to indicate their interest in the Youth Games, which the NSC introduced to give a platform for youth sports talents in the country to showcase their prowess and the process the trainable ones identified and groom them for future international events.

The meeting will be held on October 26 in
Abuja where the logo and mascot for the Games will be unveiled on October 24.

Right now I can not give you the number of
States that have indicated their interest.

But we are having a meeting on October 26 with all the director of sports from the States and also all the technical officials of the sporting federations that will be
participating," said an NSC director in charge of grassroots sports.

Meanwhile, Ondo State Sports Council boss,
Idowu Akinbulumo stated that Ondo was
intensifying training towards the games with
the hope of topping the medals table.

"We are intensifying our preparation and we
look forward to bringing out our best before
the competition properly begins.

"All we are doing now is to train our athletes to bring out the best in them, we have also intensified our training schedule to ensure a successful outing," she added.

Akinbulumo said that the sports competition,
being the first of its type in the country,
would go a long way in bringing out the best
in the athletes since they were young.

She said that age would be a crucial benchmark in selecting the athletes, as the games was age-graded with the aim of developing athletes at the grassroots level.

"Most of our athletes were discovered through inter-school games.

"We organised inter-local government and
inter-zone championships, where prizes and
incentives were attached to winners in
different categories."

Mrs. Akinbulumo urged sports councils across
the country to give more emphasis to the
discovery of sports talents at the grassroots level, instead of recycling old sportsmen and women in international games.

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