Teenage sensations Okiki Ogunshakin and Joy Emmanuel were crowned champions at this year’s Lagos State Table Tennis Association Junior Championships tagged Elicris Table Tennis Cup.
The preliminary round was hosted at the Indoor Sports Hall of the National Table Tennis Federation Hall, Surulere, as 84 players engaged in fierce yet healthy competition among the junior and cadet players from various clubs in Lagos State.
The preliminaries commenced December 14 and it had in attendance 24 junior boys, 16 junior girls, 32 cadet boys and 12 cadet girls.
At the grand finale, Ogunshakin and Emmanuel dethroned the defending champions Tobi Adebakin and Aishat Rabiu respectively to emerge as the boys’ and girls’ new champions.
Abdulsalam Lateef and Faiza Musbau claimed the cadet titles at the expense of Habeeb Adebayo and Testimony Adegbola respectively.
Ogunshakin described his win as a reward for hard work, being his first final in any major competition.
“I am so excited that I claimed the title in my first final. I must admit that it was not an easy win because my opponent, the defending champion, was not an easy nut to crack. But I am happy that my strategy worked well against him and I hope I can maintain the momentum going into 2024,” the youngster said.
Chairman, Lagos State Table Tennis Association, Tunji Lawal, lauded the sponsors for coming to the aid of the association, and appealed to more corporate bodies to support the association in its quest to engage youngsters.
“We are very grateful to the management of Elicris for keeping faith with us with the staging of this year’s edition and from the outcome, we have new faces emerging. This goes to show that we are working hard to unearth new talents and we believe 2024 will be more exciting for the players while we cal on well-meaning individuals and bodies to come to the aid of the association by sponsoring competitions,” Lawal said.
