Nigeria’s oldest sports tournament, Molade Okoya-Thomas Table Tennis Cup marks its 55th edition this year as players across Lagos battle for trophies and prize money at the three-day tournament taking place at Teslim Balogun Stadium.
The tournament which has produced some of the country’s finest table tennis stars including the legendary Atanda Musa started in 1968 by the late business mogul Molade Okoya-Thomas to mark his installation as the then Asoju Oba of Lagos.
This year’s edition will kick off on Monday December 18 to 20 with players competing in the senior and junior divisions as the Lagos State Table Tennis Association (LSTTA) has promised to use the tournament to select its team for the 2024 National Sports Festival.
Deji Okoya-Thomas said this year’s marks another milestone celebration of the competition which has continued to churn out players for the country while pledging the commitment of the family to the annual staging of the championships.
“We want to continue to uphold the legacy of our late father, by ensuring that we mark every milestone edition with unique activities and for this year, we hope to make it distinct by ensuring that we reward the players and participants with good prizes. We are aware of the economic challenges across the country but in our usual style, we will stage the tournament in a low-key way hoping that it will fulfil the ideal of the founder of the competition,” he said.
He added: “With the large turnout of players for a recent tournament in Lagos, we believe that more young players will again come through this tournament just like the likes of Olufunke Oshonaike, Bose Kaffo and a host of others have come through to become stars in Africa and the world. But we also lay emphasis on the education of the athletes because we want to follow the ideals of our father, we most times preached education with sports during his lifetime being a former athlete himself. We hope the best players will again emerge this year as we look forward to an exciting tournament.”
For the chairman of LSTTA, Tunji Lawal, the family of late Okoya-Thomas should be commended for keeping faith with the consistent staging of the tournament event after the demise of the initiator.
“We must commend the family for their efforts to sustain the tournament on yearly basis and we want to use the tournament to pick our team for the 2024 National Sports Festival and after that we want to start a league that we keep the players in shape for the championships. We have realised that our players must be active for them to perform at their best in major tournaments and we are hoping that new players will come through this year as usual,” Lawal said.
