The Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, says the ministry will in future adopt digital means of identifying age-cheats at the National Youth Games (NYG).

Mr Dare was speaking at the games closing ceremony in Ilorin on Tuesday at the University of Ilorin Sports Complex.

“We will consider the NIMC registration as a requirement going forward. There will be a need for all athletes to have NIMC registration before they can participate henceforth.

“This database will now require one to input their national identity number (NIN) before the athlete can be registered successfully.

“This measure is needed to avoid losing out on a possible potential medalist being screened out as over-aged while he or she is not,” the minister said.

He said this approach would allow the over-aged athletes to be easily identified, screened out and mete out appropriate stiff penalties to offending athletes and states.

Mr Dare, however, pointed out that this edition of the NYG has been an eye-opener to all, in view of the abundance of talents and potentials on parade.

He said his ministry will properly groom and prepare the winners for the African Youth Games (AYG) in Ethiopia in 2022, as well as the Youth Olympics in Dakar, Senegal.

The first edition was held in 2013. This year, 35 States participated in 34 sports.

(NAN)