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Okpekpe road race announces new prize money for Edo indigenes

By Editor
19 April 2015   |   11:59 pm
ORGANISERS of the third Okpekpe 10-kilometre road race scheduled for next month have announced an increase in the prize money for the first nine Edo-State born finishers in the men and women categories.

ORGANISERS of the third Okpekpe 10-kilometre road race scheduled for next month have announced an increase in the prize money for the first nine Edo-State born finishers in the men and women categories.

The respective male and female winners will go home with N500, 000 each, an increase of N400, 000, while the first and second runners up will get N300, 000 and N250, 000 respectively.

The ninth-placed runner will get N50, 000, while the eighth, seventh, sixth, fifth and fourth-placed finishers will go home with N75, 000, N100, 000, N150, 000 and N200, 000 respectively.

According to Yusuf Ali, a member of the organising committee and former Africa, Commonwealth and World Universities Games long jump champion, the organizing committee arrived at the decision to increase the prize money for the locals because of the need to encourage them to be more competitive.

“The new prize money structure will make them train more and, hopefully, we will get them to compete for the main prize of $25,000,” he said, adding that he is happy that the male winner in that category in the past two editions, Lawrence Osheku, has promised to improve on his performance.

“You can see that the guy who emerged the best Edo State indigene in the last two editions, Lawrence (Osheku) is already talking about improving from a 34 minutes runner to 31 and this will be a significant improvement. I am sure if he is able to achieve this, he will be contesting for the top prize for Nigerian runners.

“We believe by next year he will be among the contestants for the $25,000 top prize,” said Ali, who heaped plaudits on race owner, Mike Itemuagbor, for approving the new prize money structure for Edo State indigenes.

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