Miss Hassanat Hassan, seven year old has won the Estate Youth Parliament (EYP) marathon race 2022 edition.
This was disclosed in a statement made available to newsmen in Lagos on Monday EYP media chairman, Mr Olamiju Oretola.
Oretola said that Hassan records a first time history of a juvenile emerging winner.
He said that Hassan, 7 years emerged winner while Sofiyyat Muhideen, 14 years and Mariam Adenekan 16 years emerged second and third respectively.
He said that Hassan commended the programme as a kid participant and encourage the organisers to put in more effort in widening the horizon of the competition to give access to more talented racers come next year.
Oretola said that Rufus Akinniyi shown great resilience again at the EYP marathon when he successfully defended his five laps title for the second consecutive season.
He said that Akinniyi took down Oluwaseyi Abiola, one time winning record of 44.54s going on to set a new winning record of 44.10s.
He said that Seyi, an internationally based racer was in 2020 the first ever winner of the EYP Marathon challenge after it commenced.
“EYP’s Lasisi Emmanuel started very well in the race and he did well to hang on to the 3rd spot before overtaking Seyi Abiola’s 2nd leading racer position at the last lap.
“The event lived up to its objective of unearthing talents.
“Abiola told newsmen that his emergence in 2020 bore to the fact that he still had a lot of hardcore training in him as he had just returned to the country then.
“He noted that although his second position was overtaken, his resilience towards success can never be defeated as his present state determines his success rate which stimulates him to practice harder ahead of more racing competitions.
“However, the racing outcome has become a spectacular season for Akinniyi, scooping a plethora of trophies at the event as he records the best 5 laps hurdler in this season” Oretola said.
Oretola said that EYP marathon was to identify talents amongst youths who have interest in running.
He said that going by the turnout of juveniles for this edition, and the emergence of the seven year-old as champion of that category progress was being made with the marathon.
He said that EYP however hoped to improve on the lapses it had noticed and would do all that was necessary to have a better organised event next year.