The season two of the Schools’ Athletics Championships, MTN CHAMPS with three new cities – Asaba, Kaduna and Port Harcourt hosting the championships.
According to the organisers – Making of Champions (MoC), the maiden edition of MTN CHAMPS was held across four cities: Benin, Uyo, Ibadan and Abuja from October to December 2023, with over 7,000 athletes and 400 schools registering across Cadet (U14), Youth (U17) & Junior (U20) age groups.
For Season 2 of MTN CHAMPS, the tournament is returning with some changes and innovations, starting with the locations of the championships as only one location from 2023 has been retained for 2024 (Ibadan), while the cities of Asaba, Kaduna and Port Harcourt will get to experience the excitement of hosting MTN CHAMPS for the first time.
Also, unlike Season One that featured three age categories, the senior category (20 and above) has been introduced to Season 2 to cater to adults who may be in school, university, club, state, national or unattached Athletes, taking the age categories of CHAMPS to 4.
MoC will be partnering with Nigeria School Sport Federation (NSSF) as the Official Schools’ Partner of MTN CHAMPS, to ensure the widespread access and participation of schools and students across all four host cities of MTN CHAMPS.
Also, the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) will continue as Official Technical Partner of CHAMPS to ensure that all races are electronically timed, and all results are ratified for global recognition by World Athletics.
In a historic partnership and agreement with the AFN, the first leg of MTN CHAMPS Season 2 set to hold in Asaba, the Delta State capital, will be used as the National Trials for the forthcoming African Games!
As such, MTN CHAMPS is inviting at least 100 Junior & Senior Secondary Schools in each CHAMPS city to each register up to 10 Athletes who can each select 3 individual Athletics events, from which they will also select their 4x100m relay teams.
Mixed schools can apply twice: once for the Boys’ team of 10 and one for the Girls’ team of 10. In addition, Junior Secondary and Senior Secondary Schools should also register separately in the Cadet & Youth categories respectively.
An estimated 2,000 Athletes will contest each of the events – Up to 1,500 Youth & Cadets from over 100 Secondary Schools, while 500 Seniors & Juniors can enter either individually or in Teams of up to 20 Athletes who can also each enter 3 individual Athletics events. Each Junior Team may also enter Boys’ & Girls’ 4x100m and Mixed 4x400m Relays, but only using the 20 Athletes they have registered.
From the plans, the MTN CHAMPS Asaba / AFN National Trials will take place on February 17 to 21, while the Kaduna leg will hold on March 5 to 8; Ibadan leg will take place on March 26 to 29 while the grand finale in Port Harcourt will hold on April 23 to 26.
The events include 100m, 200m, 400m, 4x100m, Long Jump & High Jump.