The 2nd Annual Late Chief Adetunji Jibowu Handball Competition for Secondary Schools commenced today across five centres in Ogun State.
The school sports handball competition being organised by Ogun State Handball Veterans under the leadership of Adeyemi George, aka Osawe is in collaboration with the Ogun State Handball Association and it will hold from November 15th – 19th, 2021.
According to the Secretary of the handball veterans, Daramola Babatunde Lukman in a chat with Newsnigeriaonline.com.ng, he noted that the competition would hold in U-12, U-15, and U-18 categories.
He added that the essence of the competition was to develop the game at the grassroots level in the state, as well as to discover more talents that can be nurtured to represent the state and country in the near future.
He recalled that in the 70s and 80s, Ogun State was one of the best in handball event in Nigeria, but things have changed in the recent period. Therefore, they were doing this to revive the game to the golden era.
While responding on the modalities, he explained that the preliminaries would be organised across five divisions namely Ijebu, Remo, Egba, Yewa and Ado Odo-Ota respectively from November 15th – 17th while top team in both boys and girls will qualify for the quarterfinals.
“The top team from each division will advance to the next round of the competition. We are going to have four teams from other divisions while Egba division will present two teams, making twelve teams in all, that is six from boys and six from girls respectively.
“Having qualified, the six teams will be divided into two groups for round robin that will hold at Alake Sports Centre, Ijeja, whereby the top two schools from each group will play semifinals and to determine who will play the final. This is applicable to both boys and girls.
“Among schools that have registered for the competition in Abeokuta are African Grammar School; Methodist High School, Ogbe; Ignore High School; Abeokuta Grammar School; St. Peters Anglican College, Olomore; Macjob Grammar School, Onikolobo, and among others.
“From Yewa division, we have Itolowo Community High School; Yewa College, Ilaro. We also have Iganmode High School, Ansarudeen High School from Ado Odo It’s division. Remo Secondary School, and amongst.
Newsnigeriaonline.com.ng recalls that teams from Yewa division, Itolowo Community High School won the boys category while Yewa College, Ilaro won the girls category of the maiden edition of the competition held in 2019.
However, the second edition slated for year 2020 could not hold due to the outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic that ravaged the country and other parts of the world.
