The Fifth National Junior Athletics Championship ended on Saturday night at the Tamale Sports Stadium, with athletes from the Ashanti Region winning most of the events.

The two-day event, organized by the Ghana Athletics Association (GAA) with sponsorship from Maria Tsakos Foundation, a Greece-based organization, featured 22 track events and eight field events such as 5000 metres, 3000 metres, 100 metres, 110 metres (hurdle), discus, javelin, triple jump amongst others, for both male and female categories.

About 124 athletes aged 19 and below, alongside some previous participants, who had been invited, competed in the various categories for honours, where those who emerged winners received rlg branded mobile phones.

The event took place in the evenings between 18hrs GMT and 22hrs GMT, because of the harsh weather conditions prevailing in the region, and received appreciable level of patronage by fans, who filled about one-quarter of the Tamale Sports Stadium.

Mr Moses Bukari Mabengba, Northern Regional Minister, led a delegation comprising the Deputy Northern Regional Minister, Deputy Minister for Women and Children’s Affairs and officials from the Regional Coordinating Council to attend the last day of the event and donated GHc1000 to the GAA.

Mr Bawa Fuseini, General Secretary of GAA expressed satisfaction at the organization of the event adding a team would be selected out of the contestants to represent the country in the West Africa Junior Championship to be staged in Abidjan, Ivory Coast from April 1, to April 3, 2012.

Mr Fuseini said the same team would represent Ghana at the ECOWAS Games, which would be hosted by Ghana from June 2, to June 8, this year.

He said winners at the ECOWAS Games would be selected to participate in the World Junior Championship scheduled to take place in Barcelona, Spain in July this year.**