Ekiti state governor, Peter Ayodele Fayose, has approved six schools to become the Centres of Sports Excellence on the Basic Olympic Opportunity Sports Training (BOOST) project. It comprises three primary and three secondary schools.
According to Chief Mary Onyali (MFR), the Executive Director (technical) of the project, “we got the letter from the state government approving the schools. They are: SUBEB Model primary school, Afao-Ekiti, SUBEB Model primary school, Ikole-Ekiti and St Joseph primary school Ikere-Ekiti while the secondary schools are Moba Grammar school, Otun-Ekiti; Omuo High School, Omuo-Ekiti and Aramoko District Commersial Secondary School, Aramoko-Ekiti.
“Children who live in the state capital, Ado-Ekiti, will be eligible to be taught in the eight sports while the Ekiti state Elite Athlete Development programme will have 25 athletes we want to prepare for the 2020 Olympics. The Afe Babalola University Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) will house the programme.
The 25 athletes will come from athletics, weightlifting, swimming, table tennis and gymnastics. The host state shall provide 15 of the athletes while 10 will be brought from outside of the state while the host university shall have five slots.
According to Onyali, “we are willing to put N5million on each of these 30 athletes in the first season. Their programme will commence by the first week of January 2016.
We have already commenced head hunting the technical staff that will man the programme in the five sports. By the end of the next week we shall announce the Technical Director. All the five coaches will be on a four-year performance based contract which we hope should give the nation the core of the athletes that will do us proud in the 2020 Olympic games.
