Skoolimpics: Heritage Bank Tasks Students To Break Onyali’s Record

L-R: Executive Director, Heritage Bank, Mary Akpobome; The Heritage Bank-Lagos State Skoolimpics Ambassador, Mary Onyali; Managing Director/CEO, Ifie Sekibo and The Director General, Lagos State Sports Commission, Dewunmi Ogunsanya representing the Lagos State Sports Commissioner, during the opening ceremony of Skoolimpics at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, in Lagos …yesterday. PHOTO: SULEIMAN HUSAINI

The Chief Executive Officer/Managing Director, Heritage Bank, Ifie Sekibo, has set aside a N10m trust fund for any athlete that can break the 200 metre record set by ex-international, and Skoolimpics Ambassador, Mary Onyali.

The MD while declaring the pilot edition of the Heritage Bank-Lagos State Skoolimpics 2016 open said he would be setting aside the sum of N10m that would be yielding interests and handed over to any athlete discovered at the competition who was able to break Onyali’s record.

Onyali’s 200-metre record of 22.07secs was set 20 years ago at the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games and no athlete has been able to break the record.

The MD also applauded other sponsors like Lagos State Government, CWAY, Mr. Biggs, Etransact, Verve, Willson’s Lemonade, Lucozade Sport who partnered with the bank in their quest to develop the youths.

“Skoolimpics has come to stay and this is just the pilot edition,” he said.

“We have planned and met with people and today we all can see the results of the planning. I am happy that we have somebody as Mary Onyali as an ambassador because she was discovered from school competitions like this.

“The target is to build future champions from amidst all these students and I am looking forward to seeing an athlete that will break our Skoolimpics brand ambassador’s 200m record.

“I am going to start an endowment fund with N10million for anyone that can break her record in the next 10 to 20 years. The money will be increasing in an interest-yielding account and whosoever breaks that record will take the money…and with that I declare this year’s Skoolimpics open.”

Five events will be competed for across two venues, Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere and Rowe Park, Yaba. The events are athletics, basketball, table tennis, swimming and handball.