By Millicent Ifeanyichukwu and Bayo Olawunmi
Lagos – The Nigeria Police Taekwondo Association (NPTA), organisers of annual Inspection-General of Police (IGP) Taekwondo Championships, have expressed uncertainty on the 9th edition of the tournament.
SP. Stella Ebikefe, Chairperson of NPTA, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday that the 9th edition, billed for July 2020, was unfortunately affected by the COVID-19-induced restrictions.
Ebikefe said that the annual championship was part of effort to identify talents and promote the sport in the country.
“The annual IGP Championship had been held for the past eight years, being an inspiring tournament for taekwondo athletes and officials, but we are not sure of this year’s edition.
“We all know the situation of things in the country because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That is affecting the sports sector and our IGP Championships but we are keeping tab on developments as to when lockdown will be called off completely and schedule for the National Sports Festival declared,” she said.
According to Ebikefe, the 8th edition of IGP Championships held from July 24, 2019 to July 28,2019 in Port Harcourt, had 250 participants.
She noted that the participants were drawn from policemen/women, clubs, foreign and home-based taekwondo athletes.
The NTPA chairperson, also a Bantamweight IGP gold medalist, noted that the Nigerian Army Taekwondo team made of 12 athletes of four females and eight males won the 2019 edition trophy.
The winners carted away with four gold and three bronze medals.
<img class=”alignnone size-medium wp-image-1811776″ src=”https://portal.nannews.ng/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/nigerian-army-300×169.jpg” alt=”” width=”300″ height=”169″
Nigerian Army Taekwondo Team, winner of 2019 IGP Taekwondo Championships and Grandmaster Emmanuel Oghenejobo.
“It was a highly competitive event last year when the Nigerian Army team came top. I am sure that they will be warming up to defend their title,” Ebikefe added.
She advised regular participants of the tournament to sustain their training tempo, while observing COVID-19 precautionary measures to curb coronavirus spread.
(NAN)
