With Cross River reaffirming its readiness to host this year's National School Sports Festival, over 1000 students across the country are expected to compete for honours at the multi-sports championship.The event takes place from November 14 to 24 with the organisers, National School Sports Federation (NSSF) hoping to unearth more talents for the country.Speaking at a briefing to herald the championship, NSSF President, Ibrahim Muhammad said the essence was to bring back the golden era of Nigerian Sports, which was made possible by organized school sports, a nursery for discovering budding talents.'Our championships are geared towards bringing back the glory days, produce real young athletes for the nation, curb social vices among the youths and build a more united Nigeria through rechannelling the energy of our school children to laudable sporting programmes,' he said.He said the games would feature17 scoring events and five demonstration sports. The scoring events to be featured according to him are - athletics, badminton, boxing, chess, football, gymnastics, handball, judo, karate, scrabble, and swimming.Others are table tennis, taekwondo, volleyball, weightlifting, and wrestling.Muhammad further explained that the demonstration sports would include, dart, baseball, cricket and tradition sports.The NSSF boss said the festival would provide the platform for Socio-educational interaction among pupils across the country, which was the hallmark of the last three editions.'I call on parents, guardians, principals and proprietors of schools to encourage their students to participate in the national event. The finalist in the athletic events will be kitted by international sportswear company, Adidas and we want to use this opportunity to call on other corporate organisations to emulate this gesture,' he said.Cross River State Commissioner for Sports, Raymond Obeten said the state was ready to host the teams, while the tourism potentials of the state would be projected during the 10-day tournament.It is recalled that Lagos State won the 3rd edition hosted by Kano State while Lagos and Ogun hosted the first and second editions respectively.
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