The organisers of the Future Olympian Athletics Classic have shifted the competition from the first quarter of 2026 to the fourth quarter of the year, aiming to expand it into a truly national event.
According to a statement signed by Bruce Ijirigho, a former quarter-miler and Team Nigeria’s captain to the boycotted Montreal 1976 Olympic Games, the postponement will allow the Organising Committee to design a broader national framework that incorporates participants from all six geopolitical zones, rather than limiting the event to selected regions.
The competition is being organised by The Youth Sports Renaissance Foundation (YSRF), a non-profit organisation registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) by Bruce Ijirigho, Godwin Obasogie and Charlton Ehizuelen. The initiative is designed to revive sports development — particularly athletics — in secondary schools across Nigeria.
Mr Ijirigho, who serves as the Project Lead, said the Future Olympian Athletics Classic is not an attempt to reinvent existing structures but to restore a development model that once worked effectively.
He explained that the programme seeks to revive the culture that ensured he and many of his contemporaries were identified early during their secondary school years, provided with proper coaching and academic support, and subsequently awarded sports scholarships that enabled them to combine education with athletics. Many of those athletes went on to become national, continental and global champions.
Said Mr Ijirigho, The bane of sports in Nigeria and many African countries is that our youth don’t get opportunities early enough, and lack modern coaching techniques that are age-appropriate to accelerate their development.
‘‘The Future Olympian Athletics Classics will not only ensure that we discover talents in their early teens but also include international coaching clinics that will transfer skills to the Games masters and coaches for better success. That way, we will do a better job of nurturing them to become Olympians and world beaters by the time they are in their late teens and early twenties. And that is why this competition is strictly for students in High School, it’s a developmental programme.”
He further explained the rationale for expanding the event nationwide.
Mr Ijirigho said, “Talents abound in every nook and cranny of the country. Therefore, we want to give students across the country opportunities to be discovered.
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There are great middle- and long-distance runners in many parts of the country who were not discovered at all or discovered too late, ditto sprinters, quarter-milers, jumpers, hurdlers, and other athletes in different events and parts of the country. With the postponement, we will be able to widen the tent and give all our youth equal opportunity’’.
Expressing confidence in Nigeria’s athletic potential, Mr Ijirigho maintained that the country has the capacity to dominate global athletics with the right developmental structures in place.
He said, “We have what it takes to dominate athletics in the world; all we need to do is get our development programme right, and that is what the Future Olympians Athletics Classic will do for our youth and the country once it starts in the last quarter of 2026.”