The eighth GCU Relays will hold on Saturday, 14 November 2026, keeping the long-standing habit of staging the Government College Ughelli meeting on the second Saturday of that month.
HRM Albert Akpomudje, SAN, President General Worldwide of the Government College Ughelli Old Boys Association, locked in the date at the last NEC sitting. That same meeting also cleared the rest of the calendar, including the Annual Dinner in Benin City in October and the Lagos Luncheon in December.
The November date sits just after the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, Senegal, from the 6th to the 10th. Omatseye Nesiama, now at the helm of the GCU Relays, will be there in full as one of the Technical Directors of that first-of-its-kind African meeting.
Nesiama, a former Technical Director of the Athletic Federation of Nigeria, will take charge of the eighth Inter-school collegiate Relays. He also chairs the Nigeria Olympic Committee Technical and Development Commission and will work closely with the Delta State Sports Commission, which supplies the TimeTronics timing, and with NAATO, with a clear aim of a smooth, near-perfect meet.
The Relays are in their ninth year, one edition having been lost to Covid-19. The gathering still revives the old secondary school athletics rivalry that has run for decades. More than 30 schools and about 500 student-athletes are expected on the tartan at Government College Ughelli, the track built and donated by the NNPC–Shell joint venture.
