The countdown to the 15th edition of the Biggest Sporting Event in Corporate Nigeria is on!
The tournament which is billed to hold in September will once again feature top athletes from banks in Nigeria as they take time out from their busy schedules to keep fit, catch up with friends and generally have fun.
Already several teams have started preparations in earnest with a view to maintaining and improving their performance from the last edition.
A quick reminder of how it panned out at the 2014 Games:
v Fidelity Bank reclaimed their Overall Champions Crown from Sterling Bank therefore continuing their dominance of the Games.
v UBA won the football event and in so doing joined Skye Bank as the 2 most successful football teams in the NBG with 5 Championships each.
v Seun Mohammed of Skye Bank who was the MVP of the football tournament has been the highest goal scorer for 3 seasons running.
v Heritage Bank made their debut in the NBG and were unlucky not to qualify from their group. They were led by an NBG Legend and Hall of Famer, Seun Osiyemi.
v Diamond Bank re-joined the Games after a 2 years absent and finished third in the Overall Medals Standing.
v Ecobank finished third in the football event. Their best performance in recent seasons.
v The Hall of Fame Class of 2014 was inducted. Among the inductees was the first and only female and non-football athlete – NBG Queen Vivian Ezenwoko.
v The 2014 NBG witnessed the highest turnout ever in the following events – Scrabble, Chess, Table Tennis and Athletics. The 10 banks that participated all had maximum entries for each of the events.
v Fredrick Rekuoya of Sterling Bank was able to retain his title in Table Tennis, together with the First Bank duo of Femi Ayeni and Solomon Idowu, they have completely dominated the ping pong event for the past 3 years.
v New Champions emerged in other events – Jerry Asuzu of Fidelity Bank in the 100m and 200m race. Ogechi Iheanacho of Fidelity Bank in the Women’s Tennis event, Ojo Oyelami of Skye Bank in the Men’s Tennis event and Anne Okafor of Fidelity Bank in the women’s 200m race and Onyinye Abali of Diamond Bank in the Scrabble event and Uyoyo Oladapo in the women’s Scrabble event to mention a few.
v The Fidelity Bank Female Athletic team continued their dominance of the tracks by winning 6 of the available 7 medals in the track events.
Now the stage is set once again for another 12 weeks of sporting fun and recreation and we expect that more record will be broken and made, New Champions will emerge while some old war horses will keep going strong.
But most importantly, old friends will re – unite and new friendships will be made.
It is the Nigeria Bankers Games, how are you preparing?
Fela is the Co-founder of MediaVision Limited .
