Beach Olympics Gets March 3rd Date 

The inaugural Beach Olympics slated for Eko Atlantic City, Victoria Island, Lagos, will hold between March 3 and 4. This much was revealed by the organisers to newsmen at a press briefing held yesterday at Yellow Chilli Restaurant, Victoria Island.

According to the organisers, the Beach Olympics is expected to be the biggest and most fascinating two-day beach event, with 15 sports to be competed for by 300 athletes and coordinated by some officials.

Some of the events to be competed for include beach volley ball, wheelbarrow race, high jump, long jump, triple jump, 50m and 100m sprint, 50m backward sprint, sack race and 4x50m relay race.

Others include tug of war, sumo wrestling, 20m truck tyre race, beach put and 50m drag race. “Ten clubs within the Lagos metropolis would be presenting 20 athletes consisting of 10 males and 10 female athletes each,” the event director, Dapo Ononusi said.

Ononusi said the clubs were picked within the sporting axis of Lagos, some of which are Agege, Ajah, Agegunle, Lekki, Festac, Surulere and Yaba.

The top three athletes in each event would be decorated with gold, silver and bronze medals respectively, while the club with the highest number of medals would cart home N1.5 million, first runner-up wins N750, 000 and the third placed club wins half a million naira.

“We are excited about the Beach Olympics because sport is a unifying factor,” Ononusi noted. On his part, the event president, Uche Nwankwo, said the objective of the Beach Olympics is to get the youths engaged and a way of giving back to the society, promising that there would be more athletes in future participating in future events.

He noted that the event would be held annually, just as he called for corporate organisations to join and support in making it bigger.