Lagos Wins Ninth NYG As Anambra Settles For 14 Medals
The ninth National Youth Games ended Saturday in Asaba, Delta State with Lagos state finishing overall vest.
Team Anambra concluded their campaign with a total of 14 medals comprising four gold, two silver and eight bronze.
Team Lagos topped the medals table with 52 gold, 32 silver and 26 bronze, Delta and Edo were second and third with 37, 33 gold, 38,18 silver and 39 and 28 bronze respectively.
Bayelsa, Kwara and Abia finished fourth, fifth and sixth with 18, 15 and 12 gold, 12, 10 and 36 silver and 25,19 and 9 bronze medals.
Patrick-Estate Onyedum, Chairman of Anambra State Sports Development Commission expressed satisfaction with the performance of his team even though they fell short of last edition’s performance.
Recall that Anambra finished eighth place on the overall medals table winning nine gold, nine silver, and eight bronze medals, totaling 26 medals
Onyedum said NYG was a development programme which was largely for talent discovery and not medal accumulation.
He said Anambra was proud of her athletes because they were within the age range and could defend their victories.
Onyedum appreciated Gov. Chukwuma Soludo for developing sports at the grassroots level through the reintroduction of school sports.
He reiterated his concern about the prevalence of cheating in age group competitions and called on the National Sports Commission and Sports Federation to adopt stringent measures to address the problem.
“It is quite unfortunate, this is supposed to be a competition for children of 15 years old and below but I presented a medal to a young man with a mustache, how can a 15 years old boy grow beards.
“I expected that as we progress, we will be getting it right but it is sad that there is either no mechanism to control it or the organisers are not interested, people go as far as changing their national identification number.
“Conceiving and implementing this Youth Games is the best thing that has happened to sports development in Nigeria but age falsification and desperation to win is defe
ating the purpose,” he said.
