By Akinwale Kasali
Nigeria’s contingent to the just concluded All African Games, AAG, in Morocco are being praised by sports enthusiasts, analysts and the Federal Government for their scintillating performance at the Continent’s Championship.
Team Nigeria, as the delegates to the competition are called, proved their mettle as one of the leading sports nation in the Continent, despite the poor preparation and the fire brigade approach of Nigeria to major competitions.
Nigeria won 46 gold medals; 33 silver and 48 bronze medal to finish second behind Egypt who won 102 gold medals; 98 silver and 73 bronze medal to garner 273 medals to top the medal log.
South Africa came third behind Nigeria, winning 36 gold, 26 silver and 25 bronze.
The host nation, Morocco came a distant fifth behind fellow North African neighbor, Algeria with 31 Gold, 32 Silver and 46 bronze.
Algeria on its part garnered 33 Gold, 32 Silver and 60 bronze medal.
Minister for Youths and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, showered encomium on the nation’s contingent for making the nation proud.
“This is a superb performance, within the shortest time of preparedness, the athletes made the nation great and displayed good character and attitude throughout the competition”.
The Presidency also applauded the athletes for doing brilliantly well, and for being good and worthy ambassadors to the nation.
“This is worthy of celebration, the athletes have made all of us proud. As they prepare for the 2020 Olympics, we will always support them”.
Sports analysts and enthusisats are not left out of the frenzy, as they praised the athletes for putting up a good performance and to have remained resolute inspite of the challenges they went through.
Ghana, Nigeria’s West African neighbor has been given the nod to host the next All African Games coming up in 2023.
