•Team Nigeria finished as runners up with total 120 medals
Duro Ikhazuagbe
Egypt finished as overall winners of the 13th edition of the African Games which ended last night in Accra, Ghana. The Pharaohs were the unassailable leaders, winning record 101 gold, 46 silver and 42 bronze medals to emerge champions.
It was the first time in the 59 years history of the Games that any country was achieving the 100 gold medals mark to win.
The biggest star of the Egyptian team was swimmer Marwan Elkamash, who won five gold medals in the men’s 200m, 400m, 800m, 1,500m and 4x200m relays, all in freestyle.
But his medals haul was still short of the feat performed by another Egypt in previous edition of the Games when Faten Afifi fished out seven gold medals from the pool.
Nigeria finished with 47 gold, 33 silver and 40 bronze to finish second on the final medals table. South Africa placed third with 32 gold, 32 silver and 42 bronze medals.
Algeria (29 gold medals) and Tunisia (21 gold medals) completed the Top 5 teams on the finals medals table with host Ghana placing sixth with 19 gold, 29 silver and 20 bronze medals. Morocco, Ethiopia and Mauritius all tied on nine gold medals respectively but were separated by better silver and bronze medals to place 7th, 8th and 9th while Kenya on 8 gold medals completed the Top 10 of the continental multi-sports competition.
Despite the fantastic showing by Nigeria’s 54-man track and field team emerging the overall winner of the athletics events of the 13th edition of the Games in Ghana with 11 gold, 6 silver and 5 bronze medals, weightlifting gave the country most gold medals. The lifters harvested 16 gold, 10 silver and 6 bronze medals to contribute a total 32 medals to Team Nigeria. Boxing placed third with 8 gold and 2 silver medals while wrestling was fourth in other of contribution of gold medals to Team Nigeria’s table. Daniel Igali’s men and women won 6 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze medals from the mat in freestyle wrestling event.
As a way to encourage Team Nigerian athletes, Sports Minister, Senator John Owan Enoh, fulfilled his pledge to the athletes before their departure from Ghana. Beginning from Friday, the athletes and their officials started to receive their camp allowances while there were graduated bonuses for those that won medals of various shades.
Medalists in individual sports got $3000 for gold, $2000 for silver and $1000 for bronze. For doubles, Gold attracted $5000 while silver and bronze medalists got $3000 and $1500 respectively
For Team event of six athletes, Gold fetched $6000 while $4000 and $3,000 went to silver and bronze medalists.
For Team event of 12 athletes and more, gold medalist got $12,000, silver $7,000 and bronze $5,000.
Coaches who wards won gold got $5,000, silver $2500 and $1,500 respectively.
