After the success of the maiden edition of the Government College Ibadan Old Boys Association (GCIOBA) 86/92 Closed Table Tennis Championship, the organisers have promised a more robust competition in 2026 to celebrate the GCIOBA 86/92 set’s Ruby Jubilee anniversary.
According to the Head of School of the set, Tunbi Ashaye, the school gave a lot to them and the only way to reciprocate is to continue to give back to the students and hopefully they in turn will do the same thing later in the future.
It could be recalled that Emmanuel Otubobola of Swanston House won the maiden edition of the tournament and according to Ashaye, the set will maintain the tournament in the school while also assuring that the 2026 edition will surely be bigger.
“While watching the final, I was very excited and I told one of my classmates that I can’t even see the balls again like we used to play in those days,” he said.
“I am standing here with great pride knowing that it is my set, our set that gave birth to this tournament. This is something that we will continue because it’s something that you look forward to as a student, you look forward to it because you build capacity from a tender age and then some of them may not know that they have all this within them.
“We are showcasing the school and showcasing the developments. We are celebrating 40 years of entering the school in 2026 and we are going to make the Table Tennis event bigger among other things we are going to be doing.”
In his own words, the coordinator of the closed Table Tennis event, Charles Olayinka, says that with the success of the maiden edition, it is going to be a bigger task in 2026 especially with the set’s 40 years anniversary.
He added: “What we did this year will be little compared to next year’s because we will be celebrating our 40th anniversary.
“This year, we had 40 students from all five houses competing but I can assure you that we will likely have more than that next year.
“I really want to appreciate all our sponsors, all the donors and the school officials that made it possible not forgetting the coaches and officials that helped through.”
Speaking in the same vein, the Vice Chairman of the set, Aladeojebi Oluwakolade, reassured that the set would be running the competition every year while also appreciating the convener, Charles Olayinka.
