52nd Asoju Oba Table Tennis Cup kicks off Nov 30

 
The annual Asoju Oba Molade Okoya-Thomas Table Tennis Cup has been fixed for Monday, November 30th through Tuesday,  December 1st, 2020, at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of Teslim Balogun Stadium.

According to Ayodeji Okoya-Thomas, the fifty- second edition will be organized in line with COVID-19 protocols as its being laid down by the Lagos State Sports Commission, LSSC as table tennis players would be competing for honours in the Men's and Women's Singles events.

Okoya-Thomas, said this year's edition which would be the sixth edition without the initiator, Chief Molade Okoya-Thomas, who passed on after the forty-sixth edition in 2014, would be limited to the Men's and Women's Singles events, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said the family decided to organise the tournament in order to ensure the competition which was one of the oldest sporting events in the country, continues uninterrupted, stressing that the championship would help to prepare Lagos State ping pongers to the National Sports Festival, in Edo State.

He said the competition had been a viable platform to discover ping ponger who could be groomed and nurtured to become top Nigeria's table tennis stars, stressing the event would produce enough ping pongers who join the league of table tennis players who were playing professionally in Europe after being discover through the competition.

David Fayele, winner of last's year's Men's Singles and Bose Odusanya, winner of Women's Singles, are expected to defend their titles.

The annual tournament, which was organized by the family of late Chief Molade Okoya-Thomas Thomas, started in 1968 with former national coach Babatunde Obisanya being the first winner.

The tournament, is being staged in collaboration with the Lagos State Sports Commission, LSSC, under the technical supervision of the Lagos State Table Tennis Association, LSTTA.