Frank Efe
The Chairman, Delta State Sports commission Mr. Melvin Pinnick Amaju has said that the forthcoming Chief E.K Clark National Wrestling championship will serve as qualifier for the National commonwealth games.
Mr. Amaju Pinnick made this statement at BrownHill Event Centre, Warri, venue of the of the forthcoming Chief E.K. Clark Wrestling Championship when the Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly was on inspection tour of the venue.
According to Mr. Amaju, the competition is going to be a big event that will be organized in a modern style that will meet international standard, noting that wrestling attracts more gold medals which made Delta came top at the medals table in Port Harcourt and Lagos.
Mr. Amaju said; “You know that Delta State is the hobs for sporting events right now with clear leadership on the field and we are also having leadership outside the field. Our leadership outside the field has translated to organizing events of this magnitude, and His Excellency who watched the live wrestling event in Lagos State decided to host the Chief Clark maiden Wrestling championship.”
“And this event is a qualifier for the next national common wealth games. We named the competition after our illustrious legend, Chief E.K. Clark and we are excited and he is also very excited about it. And it is going to be a very big event and for the first time such event would hold here in Warri. People normally see wrestling in the villages, now they are going to be seeing wrestling in urban area in a modern setting. So I think it is going to be well organized,” he added.
Speaking further, the Delta State Sports Commission Chairman said that apart from hosting the wrestling in Warri, the state will soon showcase other sporting events like swimming and athletics.
He said; “In the Port Harcourt games we won four gold medals which made us top the medal tables for this state. In Lagos we also won six gold medals in wrestling, which also shoot us to top the medals table. Wrestling is synonymous with some Ijaw villages and those are the villages we have in abundance. We are very interested in sports, not only wrestling; we have the Chief of Naval Staff, Senate Swimming Competition that will inaugurate the Oghara Swimming Pool, we have the Awoture EIeyae Athletics fiesta coming up.”
It also formed basis for the national youth’s games that is coming up in Abuja towards the end of the year. So we have all our programmes lined up. It is not just football and athletics we have other sports. We also have a national cycling event in September. We also are having the national weightlifting events too. And the good thing is that all these have the local organizing committee”
On his expectation of Warri Wolves at the end of this season, Amaju said; “By God’s grace, we want them to win the league and we will work and pray toward winning the league just to show appreciation to the Governor for what he has been doing in sports in general and Warri Wolves in particular.”
Speaking about the performance of the Super Eagles, Mr. Pinnick said; “On Super Eagles performance I will say they started well and they did well. But of course you know that in the area of attacking they did not do well. So I want to call on Keshi to, at least look at other Nigerian players like Anichebe, Victor Moses, Amenike, Osaze Odemwigie; if they have been in that team they would have made a huge difference. These guys should humble themselves and be calm and ask for forgiveness. If we have had these players, I believe we would have made a lot of difference because our players were not intimidated.”
“You can imagine a player from Warri Wolves playing against a Barcelona player. If you rate Barcelona, it is the best in the world, but how do you rate Warri Wolves in the world? But in spite of that, they did great. The Spanish team did not out play them, but it is just that their finishing were not clinical enough to make them achieve goals,” he concluded.
