PARA TABLE TENNIS OPEN: Organisers stake N10.8m for maiden edition

The organisers of the maiden Valuejet Para Table Tennis Open has staked N10.8m ($30,000) as prize money for the three-day championship holding at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of Teslim Balogun Stadium.

The tournament is being put together by the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) in collaboration with Sunday Odebode Sports Foundation with support from Vaulejet Airline.

Already some to players within and outside Africa have indicated interest to be part of the tournament being the first to be staged in Nigeria.

For the NTTF President, Ishaku Tikon, staging the tournament would help players that had already qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games to tune up for the sports fiesta in Japan come next year.

“This is a good development for table tennis in Nigeria,” said NTTF boss, Ishaku Tikon.

“We are excited and we can’t wait for the tournament to kick off as our aim is to make it a ranking event by 2020 on the ITTF calendar.

“This is another first from NTTF and we hope our players and visitors will enjoy the warmth of Lagos and Nigeria during the competition,” he added.

From December 16 to 18, and ITTF classifier from Egypt will be in Lagos to classify the players to their classes while the tournament will kick off on December 19 to 21 with the top three in each event getting prize money for their efforts.

44 titles will be competed for from class 1 to 10, in both singles and team events for men and women.