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ATHLETIC HEAT

Introduction

Athletic Heat was set up in May 2016 by three Nigerian teenage athletes just out of high school who realized that there was little or no support at all focused on growing and developing home-based track and field athletes and at that time no online platform or real life forum for providing encouragement and recognition! So they started a blog -www.theathleticheat.com themselves in 2016 that provided news, events and regular updates on track and field events and everything relating to Nigerian athletes home and abroad plus sporting news to a local and global audience.

The Promoters

The promoters of Athletic heat were high school graduates: Eseroghene Oguma ( turned 20 in 2018) athlete is CEO and Co-founder of Athletic Heat is a final year student at the University of Port Harcourt majoring in Business Management. Eseroghene competes in the sprint events and he has represented Lagos state and the University of Port Harcourt at several athletics competitions. In 2015, he was the Lagos State School champion in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m. During the 2017 season, he won a double bronze medal in the 200m at the National Junior Championships and the Nigerian University Games. He also helped Team Uniport secure the bronze medal in the 4x400m at the 2018 West African University Games.

Tolu Adebakin is a 21-year-old student-athlete at William Carey University, Mississippi, USA.

He competes in the 200m and relays he is a 2018 conference Championship MVP, 200m Indoor All-American, and earned the USTFCCCA All-Academic honors in 2017/2018.

He is studying Business Management and he is Athletic Heat's CFO.

Ruth Usoro is a freshman student at South Plains College, Texas, USA and COO of Athletic Heat. She's was 20yr old in 2018. At 16 she was selected to represent Lagos state at the National Sports Festival in the Women's Long Jump and she went on to become the fastest 200m schoolgirl in Lagos in 2015 as well as winning Gold medals in the Long Jump and 4x100m. At 18, in 2016 she won her first Senior medal finishing 3rd in the Women's Long Jump at the Nigerian National Championships. The following year she was selected to represent Nigeria at the West African Games where she won the Long Jump title.

The Athletic Heat Blog.

The Athletic Heat blog started in 2016 to provide news, events and regular updates on track and field events and everything relating to Nigerian athletes home and abroad plus sporting news to a local and global audience.

In the last two years, Athletic Heat has covered various competitions including the Rio Olympic Games, IAAF World Championships, Commonwealth Games, African Championships, National Golden League amongst other competitions and has  interviewed World Class athletes including Olympic medalist Caster Semenya, African 400m Champion Thebe Babaloki,  African 100m Champion Akani Simbine, Nigerian 100m champion Seye Ogunlewe and several others.

The Athletic Heat Awards 2017.

In 2017, the Athletic Heat set out to honor and recognize home-based athletes via an inclusive award program for Nigerian Track & Field. The prestigious event which held at Ultima Studios Lekki, on December 21, 2017, was preceded by a review of all the 2017 AFN events and across 9 categories selected the top performers for public votes. The Special Recognition Awards recognized and rewarded world record-holding and record-breaking Para Athletes; Paul Kehinde (65Kg Para-Weightlifter World record Holder), Flora Ugwunwa (F57 Women Javelin World Record Holder) & Lauritta Onye (F40 Women’s world record holder in Shot Put) and Patrick Anaeto (Para-coach) of the year too. Finally, lifetime recognition and Excellence Awards were given to Chief Chioma Ajunwa, Blessing Okagbare, Mrs. Falilat Ogunkoya, Mr. Mike Enahoro, and Chief Mary Onyali-Omagbemi. The awards generated over 37,000 votes!!

The 2017 Award Categories - A total of  9 awards were contested and awarded. Athletic Heat nominated 7 outstanding athletes/coaches in each category for the public to vote for a winner through an online voting process. In addition, they selected 3 Para-Athletes and 1 Para-Coach to recognize their efforts at the Rio Paralympics and a Veteran Coach who produced past Nigeria Heroes.

The Awards given were:

Youth Athlete of the Year (Male) /● 	Youth Athlete of the Year (Female)

●	 Junior Athlete of the Year (Male)/●	Junior Athlete of the Year (Female)

●	Senior Athlete of the Year (Male)/ ●	Senior Athlete of the Year (Female)

●	Breakthrough Athlete of the Year  / ●	Next Rated Athlete of the Year

●	Coach of the Year

The 2018 Award Categories

The 2018 Awards covered athletes in the following categories:

●	U-18,

●	U-20 and

●	Seniors

for both genders respectively. Plus one award for coaches. A total of  9 awards were contested. The presentation of awards took take place on Friday the 30th of November 2018 at Ultima Studios, Lekki, Lagos.

The Sports in School Program.

The Athletics in School program which is organized by Athletic Heat Ltd and Nigeria Athletics blog is targeted at promoting Track and Field among Nigerian secondary school students. With a goal to reach out and teach students about the value of athletics, benefits of participating in sports and how to pursue a professional career in various sports, while also educating on how to balance school and sports effectively.

The first school tour was to CMS Grammar School and St Finbarrs College, Akoka Lagos, Nigeria on Sept 28th, 2018.

The program also sought to scout for potential talent. This is to be managed by a professional grassroots coach, Coach Olu Sule. The athletic role model for the tour was Nigerian star athlete Abejoye Oyeniyi, Nigeria’s fastest Hurdler and Africa’s second fastest in 2018; a perfect example of how to excellently go through being both a student and an athlete running internationally for Nigeria.

Abejoye graduated from the University of Lagos, in 2016 with a  BSc. Honors in Business Education. He made his debut appearance for Nigeria at the Commonwealth Games in April 2018 and followed that up with a Silver medal at the African Senior Athletics Championships in Asaba 2018. Ran a PB of 13.84s - the fastest by a Nigerian since 2016, at the 110 hurdles final at the IAAF Continental Cup in Ostrava, Czech Republic, held between Sept 8-9, 2018.

The #AthleticsInSchoolsProgram at CMS Grammar School,  saw Abejoye personally presenting an autographed Nigerian vest to Essien the school's fastest athlete while he presented an autographed Africa vest to Benjamin Oshiafi of St. Finbarr’s.