Commonwealth Games champion India, Kenya, Uganda, Benin Republic, Togo, South Africa, and host – Nigeria are one of the participating teams in this year’s ValueJet ITTF Lagos Para Open competition.
The competition is scheduled to take place from October 12th to 14th at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall within Teslim Balogun Stadium in Surulere, Lagos.
Sunday Odebode, the Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC), confirmed that the tournament has received full approval from the international governing body for table tennis. He also noted that the competition has played a crucial role in discovering and developing new top talents in Nigeria.
In particular, Odebode highlighted that a significant number of athletes who earned qualifications for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games during the recent African Championships in Giza, Egypt, have their roots in this tournament. Furthermore, he mentioned that more players are likely to emerge, as a majority of them are currently undergoing classification by the ITTF.
“We are so happy that the tournament is now Factor 20 on the ITTF calendar, which means players aiming to qualify for the Paralympic Games can come and compete and pick the necessary points to shore up their ranking.”
“Now that it is fully sanctioned by ITTF, we are hopeful that more countries will identify with the tournament shortly.”
“For this year, we have six countries including Nigeria competing and we are going to have the singles, mixed doubles, and doubles events to prepare the players ahead of the Paralympic Games,” Odebode, who serves as the President of the Paralympic Committee of Nigeria (PCN), mentioned.
During his comments, Pablo Perez, the ITTF Para Events and Classification Manager commended the organizers of the yearly tournament for their role in fostering the development of both players and the sport.
“I am so excited that this tournament has continued to improve the Nigerian players and this was reflected in their performance at the just concluded African Championships where nine of them qualified for the Paralympic Games in Paris next year.”
“I can see that more players are coming through and this is the result of regular tournaments for players and this has confirmed Nigeria as the best in Africa and one of the top teams in the world.”
“I am so excited returning to Nigeria again and I hope that more teams and countries will be coming to be part of the tournament following the exploits of Nigerian players in major competitions across the world,” Perez said.