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Abiodun Adewale.
Participating states in different ball games at the upcoming 2022 National Sports Festival in Delta State have been confirmed by the Main Organising Committee.
The games are basketball, football, volleyball, handball, hockey, beach volleyball and baseball/softball.
In the Southwest zone, Lagos State dominated the qualifiers in all the seven ball games, qualifying for both male and female categories, except in beach volleyball, where they fell short in the men’s category.
Oyo and Ogun states followed up to fill up the remaining spaces, leaving just the female basketball slot for Ondo, while Osun picked one of the slots in male beach volleyball.
Rivers, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Edo states will continue their rivalries at the festival in Delta, having jostled for all the available slots in the South South zone among themselves.
Imo and Anambra dominated the Southeast qualifiers in six games, as all the states didn’t present any team for baseball and softball.
FCT, Plateau and Nasarawa are the forces to reckon with in North Central, just as Borno, Adamawa, Gombe, Bauchi and Yobe states shared honours in six games and left out baseball/softball.
Kano, Kaduna and Katsina states dominated the affairs in the Northwest, leaving just a slot each for Kebbi and Zamfara states.
Notably, only Kaduna entered for baseball/softball, as they will present their female team.
Among the seven ball games, basketball has the highest number of participating states with 18, followed by handball and hockey with 17 each.
Beach volleyball has 16 states, volleyball and football with 15 states each while baseball/softball will only have five states competing for the medals.
