The Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) has announced the National Stadium, Abuja as the venue to kick off the 2014 Golden League series and the creation of a new ‘Athletics Twilight Meeting‘ series.
According a statement by the Technical Director/Chair, AFN Technical Committee, Navy Commodore Omatseye Nesiama, the ‘Athletics Twilight Meet’ is designed to hold between the hours of 6pm-8.30pm on Fridays of the weeks it would be held. The first of the series is scheduled to hold on Friday April 4, 2014.
“In a further effort to assist athletes prepare better for major competitions ahead of them this year and also to bring more competitions to the Northern part of the country, the AFN technical committee in collaboration with the High Performance System, have concluded plans for the staging of a regular ‘Athletics Twilight Meet’ in Abuja,” the statement read.
“It would be recalled that at the AFN Press briefing in February, the AFN Tech Committee announced that the venue would be decided in due course. By this notice, all states and clubs registered with the Federation are expected to prepare in all respects for the commencement of the Athletics season proper.
“The first objective is to make available more competitions for the athletes to be able to express themselves and prepare for better performance. The second objective is to provide template for staging of competitions that could be cheaper to conduct and therefore attractive to an array of sponsors. The third objective of the competition is to provide a good complement to the Golden League.”
We in the technical committee have decided to make personal sacrifices to ensure the meet holds whether we get sponsors or not, [Navy Commodore Omatseye Nesiama]
Athletics Nigeria also expects that the top-10 across all the range of events will be given some token incentives for their efforts. And according to [link id=”148″ tax=”post_tag” text=”Commodore Nesiama” target=”_blank”], the AFN are soliciting for private and corporate support for the meet which is the first of its kind in the country.
“We in the technical committee have decided to make personal sacrifices to ensure the meet holds whether we get sponsors or not,” he wrote.
“We are in touch with the NSC to assist with making the stadium available with the required lighting. We trust that our amiable Minister as well as the Director General would come to our aid in this area.”
[link id=”128″ tax=”post_tag” text=”Athletics Federation of Nigeria” target=”_blank”] also said all interested athletes would be required to register online at least five (5) days before the meets.
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