by crossriverwatch admin
Athletics Federation of Nigeria President, Mr Solomon Ogba said in Calabar on Tuesday where the National Athletics Championship is taking place that the 2013 championship will be remarkably different from the past events as the standard will be raised to allow only athletes who have known time record to participate.
He said the Championship serves as trials for the Worlds Athletics Championships in Moscow later in the year and not an inter house sports where every Tom, Dick and Harry would come for the trials before selecting those to do the finals.
“This is not an inter house event so this year we are only going to run two semi-finals where the contestants are more than sixteen otherwise we are going to run one semi finals and the finals for every event”.
Ogba said more funds would be committed to carrying out random dope tests for athletes both those who are winners and non winners rather than concentrate only on the winners since it is not only those who are doing well that dope. “Most people who violate dope tests are not even those that are doing well therefore we are not going to focus on those winning”.
He said the prize money still remains 100,000, 80,000 and 50,000 Naira for gold, silver and bronze winners respectively and would cumulatively amount to the sum of eleven million, six hundred and seventy five thousand Naira for all the various prizes excluding the cost of doping tests and other commitments.
Mr. Patrick Ugbe the Cross River State Commissioner for Youth and Sports Development said the state is using the championships to test run the 2014 National Sports Festival schedules to hold in the state is.
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