TORIOLA, KAFFO ARE TOP SEEDS AS TOURNEY BEGINS TODAY.

Reigning African and commonweatlh champion, Segun Toriola, and All African Games Silver medallist, Bose Kaffo, are the top seeds of the male and female categories of the madien edition of the Procold Lagos Table Tennis opens which began today. over 600 pkayers are taking part in the competition, which holds at the indoor hall of the University of Lagos sports center. In the seeding released yesterday by the event's technical committee, Toriola is seeded number one in the male category, closely followed by monday morotohun. Other players seeded for the championship included foriegn based duo of kareem Nosiru, David Oko and saidi Idowu, Southpaw Seun Ajetunmobi and Oyo state athlete. Aruna Quadri, will lead the home based onslaught.
In the ladies seeding, former African champion and Algiers .... the Guardian Wednesday,
August 1,2007.

PROCOLD RETURNS LIVE TO TABLE TENNIS.

At a time when the avarage Nigerian child and youth is experiencing greet difficulty in finding viable avenue to dessipate their energy because of the draught of mentors or opportunities of creating these categories of rear gem, the absence of sponsors for many sporting events has been one challenge which organisers have to cope with.

An adage says "to be a gaint you must ride on the shoulders of gaints or them". This is what Procold, a leading phamaticical brand from the stable of ogrange drugsNigeria Ltd. is set to achieve by her sponsorship of the Lagos State Table Tennis open Championship as
they support its organizers, Lagos State Table Tennis Association to create tennis gaint amongst its presumed equals wnen most corporate brands shy away from demands to use sponsorship of events in of "lesser known" sports as a platform for fulfilling thier social responsibilities.

In retrospect, Table Tennis was as popular as fooball in the 70's and 80's, and produced great players Atanda Musa whose mastery of the ping pong game was a great delight to watch. Amongst the many young players who he became positive mentor to are Monday Morotohun, Segun Toriola, silver medalist in the Algier'07 All African game, female sensation, Funke Oshinaike and ..... some of whom have become professionals trading their skills in Holland and Germany.

In an interview with Idada Joachim ASEN chief executive, Monday Morotohun said "I started playing Table tennis from age 7 and have been playing competitively for approximately 17 years but I was called into the national team in 1993". he further said "... but there (meaning abroad), we play not only championship organised by clubs but league, I play for a club where we practise everyday. The club provide me with a home, flight tickets and other wellfare packages which is very sufficient to take care of myself as a man".

In response to this question, "how comfortable are you especially playing abroad?" he said"I am very ok". Today many young players Like Ganiyat Ogundele is inspired to play abroad as she made this known to our correspondent. She is trained by her father, Mr Ogundele who similarly trained morotohun when he was based in Nigeria.

This event brings together the very best of Nigeria foreign based players and and their local challengers under a competitive platform where they can test and improve skills against each other. Mr Didik Novandi, Nigera country manager of kabel International Jakarta, Indonesia said " Giving back to the society that has supported our company is very important not only to Orange drugs but my principals. What we are doing now is small when compared to what we have planned for the future, especially with the kind of response we have had here". He further said "we want Procold to be synonymous with sponsorship not only in this tournament but for future ones is total."

This four days tourney which started on the 1 st of August will be ending on the 4th and will feature single and double event in the male and female category.

LAGOS STATE DOMINATE ATTENDANCE.

The adventage of organising competitive sporting event in a locality is the opportunities created for localise participants to easily participate in such event without having to face the huge challenge of seeking sponsorship to cover accrued cost of participation which may be huge depending on distance from tournament and available facilities. Unfoutunately such sponsorship is not easy to come by because of the percieve ignorance exhibited by potential sponsors about the marketing and advertising benefit.

This was illustrated with the dominance of the lagos based players in the meiden edition of the Lagos State Table Tennis Open Championship sponsored by Procold. Lagos is the western part of
Nigeria. Amongst the clubs based in lagos that is participating in the event are union bank club, surulere,Lagos and other participing states includes Cross Rivers, ogun, Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti, Edo,and Niger represented by a limited number of players.

This phenomenon is also experienced outside Nigeria as Monday Morotohun explianed in a chat, "when championship are held good players in clubs around the locality are always allowed to play because it is easy for them"

An important feature in this tournament is the participation of the India Language School, led by thier school coach.

MOROTOHUN CALLS FOR GOVERNMENT SPONSORSHIP TO INTERNATIONAL TOURNEY.

The test of the proficiency of any modern sportsman or woman in any sport or game is signified by their rating which is determined by the numbers of internationally recognised world event such athlete can participate in either individually or representing their country. such
ratings are release by the world governing body in that sport.

To our enquiry by our correspondent about the general world ratings of most Nigerian player in Table Tennis, Monday Morotohun who is foreign based explianed "I am rated 240 in the world. it is like that because we do not participate in many international championship which is unfortunate. i will tell the government(i.e. refering to the Nigerian government) to provide more money so that we can attend more events as we are representing Nigeria."

Sports has become an important part and tool of international diplomacy which the Nigeria government has continously short changed herself by her inability to sponsor our sports icons. The key benefit of such sponsorship is nation building and international image laundrying and public relations.

During the Table Tennis event in last recently held Algier's 2007, All African games which held in the Algeria, a naturalise chinese represented the Democratic Republic of Congo beat our Segun Toriola to the gold medal in the men's single event which in the past was a preserve for Nigeria.

Mr Didik Novandi, Nigera country manager of kabel International Jakarta, Indonesia says "it will bring him and all Nigeria Table Tennis lovers great great joy to see us get our proud of flesh from this guy, who rob us". He further noted that the sponsorship of the 1st Lagos State Table Tennis event is geared at preparing our players for such an epic encounter when it is held.

Segun Toriola, lanre Jegede and funke Oshonaike are amongst Nigeria's Foreign based players.