NYG21: Age Cheat And Trickery Rock Deaf Athletics Event

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It was an unpleasant scene on Sunday at the ongoing sixth National Youth Games when some participants expressed their displeasure over the disqualification of some ‘Special athletes’ of Deaf sports, Owosports.com.ng reports.

The disqualification was consequent upon the discovery of some athletes who were deemed to be over aged.

The deaf sports which was making it’s maiden appearance at the sixth National Youth Games witnessed an horrific clash between some coaches and officials who were furious after some of their athletes were disqualified.

Speaking to one of the deaf sports officials, Mrs Shola Adeshina a board member who explained that the deaf sports federation has mandated that every participating team provides Athletes under the age of fifteen so as to avoid cheating in order to help in discovering raw talent that will represent Nigeria Internationally at any level”.

“We asked them to provide Athletes under the age of fifteen but they came with some Athletes over fifteen”, she said to Journalist.

“It is a deaf sports but we discovered that some were not actually deaf which is cheating and they are pleading that we allow them to participate”.

“We interviewed some of their Athletes and discovered that some were age seventeen, nineteen and twenty years, they told us by themselves”, she concluded.

Also speaking with the General secretary of the deaf sports federation, Alhaji Lookman Agbabiaka also confirmed that some states came with over aged athletes.

“We did the screening two days ago some and some states did not join. we waited for their arrival and agreed to do the screening again yesterday (Saturday)”.

The scribe continues “They all came with their Athletes for the screening, during the screening process, we used their date of birth and their face for the screening- we also used sign language to identify some who are actually deaf during the screening and we discovered that some are old and even a kid could identify that they were old”. Claimed the secretary.

“So, we separated those who passed from those who failed. we did it together with the coaches, the end of the screening was okay and we appealed to the coaches to cooperate with us because deaf sports is coming for the first time and we don’t want the coaches to Jeopardize the opportunity against next time- urging that they make our game look fine so they won’t accuse the deaf sports of destroying the beauty of the games or go against the rules of the National Youth Games”.

“Those who were cleared had their names jotted down and they all agreed to cooperate with the decision but they came here today and started inciting chaos” quipped Agbabiaka.

It’s pertinent to note that deaf sports will definitely avail a lot of young athletes opportunity to showcase their talents and maximise their potential.

The screening must be fair and in that spirit, all the stakeholders must support the dream.

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