One of Nigeria’s most decorated basketball stars – Olumide Oyedeji believes there is need to encourage school sports across the country in order to unearth new talents.
Oyedeji who was the special guest at the 15th grand finale of the Doregos Annual Inter-School Basketball Championship told Sportinglife.ng that with what the organizers of the tournament has been doing consistently with the staging of the championship, it becomes obvious that programmes like this would engender friendship among the students. He added that this would also help to discover new talents for the country.
International School, Lagos (ISL) and Queen’s College reclaimed their titles in the boys and girls events after beating Airforce Secondary School and Strong Tower School in the epic finals held in Lagos.
Oyedeji, who is also the President of the Nigeria Olympian Association (NOA) said: “I am indeed impressed with what I witnessed at the Doregos tournament and I must commend the management of the school for keeping faith with the staging of the tournament which I believe has helped to unearth talents for the country. Other schools across the country can take a cue from this kind of gesture to stage tournament among the students which for me would surely rub off positively on the fortunes of sports in the country.”
To emerge as champion, Queen’s College defeated Strong Tower in the low-score encounter that ended 6-3 in favour of the Queen’s team.
But the main highlight of this year’s grand finale was the match involving ISL and Airforce with both teams thrilling the fans with their exceptional display. But at the end of the entertaining encounter, it was the ISL boys that reclaimed the title again after their last triumph in 2015.
With this win, Queens College has won the title four times while this will be the eighth title for ISL.
26 teams from Lagos and Ogun competed in the tournament this year.