By Daniels Nwokike.
Abuja-It was a total show of athletic dominance in long distance race by the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) as they went home with five of the six trophies that were up for grabs in the just concluded Armed Forces and Security Agencies Half Marathon Championship 2017 held in Abuja.
The Chief of Defence Staff, General AG Olonisakin while speaking at the occasion, expressed his happiness for the success of the championship so far and reiterated that the event be organized not just to showcase the talents of the personnel of the armed forces of Nigeria and other security agencies but, more importantly, to foster the relationship between security agencies particularly in the face of security challenges across the country.
He said that the championship which will become a yearly competition will help in building the operational capacities of the different security agencies towards combating all the security challenges that the country faces.
Olonisakin stressed that the half marathon is a healthy competition which will help in eradicating conflicts of any kind and also build bridges of understanding among the different security agencies and the armed forces.
The NSCDC which had a great showing at the Championship carted away with both the individual and overall team performance prizes. On the individual category, Gideon Goyet and Deborah Pam, who are from the NSCDC, both came first with the former finishing at 1 hour, 8 minutes and 54 seconds while the later finished at 1 hour, 21 minutes and 42 seconds for the male and female respectively.
Emmanuel Gyang of the NSCDC and Keifas Williams of the Nigerian Police finished second and third for the male respectively while Njoku Genevieve and Dinatu Dung both of the NSCDC placed second and third for the female respectively. The NSCDC clinched the award for the best overall team performance followed by the Nigerian Police in second and the Nigerian army in third.
The awards includes trophies, medals, certificates of participation and cash rewards of N200,000.00 for the first position, N150,000.00 for the second position, N100,000.00 for the third position, N20,000.00 each for the first 10 male and first 10 female athletes to cross the finish line, and N20,000.00 each for the veterans that participated in the race.
