Edo 2020 National Sports Festival finally takes off in Benin

THE 20th National Sports Festival, tagged Edo 2020, finally began in Benin City on Easter Sunday after three postponements.

The biennial biggest gathering of sportsmen and women in Nigeria was initially scheduled for 2020 but had to be shifted due to Covid-19.

The sports minister Sunday Dare confirmed on Sunday morning that the festival would take off, and named the 18 sports that athletes will participate in.

The sports, in alphabetical order, include abula (a traditional event), badminton, boxing, cricket, cycling, football, handball, hockey and judo.

Some of the others are karate, kickboxing, kung-fu, rugby, scrabble, squash, swimming.

The festival was last held in Abuja in 2018 and was initially scheduled for March 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic forced a nationwide lockdown that meant it could not be held.

The financial fallouts of the first postponement also meant the festival had to be moved two more times.

Thankfully, the Local Organising Committee and the sports ministry reached a compromise to share the financial burden and also cut down on the number of events and participating athletes.

The events were supposed to be more than 30 originally and the number of athletes was slashed from around 14,000 to about 8,000 in order to have a more compact but successful festival in the Edo State capital.