*Edem wins Nigeria’s first gold at African Games in Ghana
Duro Ikhazuagbe
Nigeria’stop table tennis star, Quadri Aruna’s hope of winning the men’s singles gold of the 13th African Games was dashed last night by Egyptian Omar Assar. Assar claimed the gold in a nail-biting 4-3 result.
It was the third time that the top Egyptian star was going to deny Aruna the chance to have the African Games’ men’s singles gold medal around his neck.
After the Nigerian booked his place in the final to face his perennial nemesis, many followers of the game had looked forward to Aruna finally ending the jinx. But that did not happen as Assar started with aplomb, claiming the first set 11-8. Aruna however bounced back to take the second and third sets 11-2, 11-2.
The Egyptian recovered to take the fourth set 11-7. It became a ding dong affair with Aruna also winning the fifth set in a narrow 11-9.
With the Nigerian leading 3-2 on the card with two sets to go, Assar dug deep to claim the last two sets 11-9 and 11-10 to smile to the podium to claim the men’s singles gold medal while Aruna settled for yet another silver of the Games.
Earlier, Nigeria’s medal hunts at the Games began with Offiong Edem winning the country’s first medal, a bronze.
The Spain-based star played her best matches in the last 16 and quarterfinal when she defeated the Alhodaby twins – Marwa and Mariam to join the league of medallists in the women’s singles of the Games inside the Accra International Conference Centre.
Set up against defending champion Dina Meshref of Egypt in the semifinal, Edem caved in with a 4-0 defeat to settle for a bronze medal just like she did at the 2019 edition in Rabat, Morocco.
“I am so happy that we could attend the last World Championships in Korea and this helped my game a lot. I want to thank the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) for their support and I believe attending such a competition helped me personally here in Ghana.
“The Egyptians are ahead of us because they attend more competitions than us and we hope if we can get such support, we can return to the top of the game in Africa,” she concluded.
