Nigeria Content Online

Nigeria’s
women’s team at the African Senior Table Tennis Championships in
Yaounde, Cameroon, have won gold the women’s team event.

The men’s team,
however, finished with a silver medal, while the country also won
bronze medals in the men’s and women’s doubles events, as well as in
the mixed doubles event. The women’s team, consisting of Offiong Edem,
Ganiat Ogundele and Janet Effiom, defeated the Egyptian trio of Nadeen
El-Dawlatly, Sarah Hassan and Sara El-Sokary 3-1 to secure gold for
Nigeria. Third place went to Congo Brazzaville, who had Nigerian,
Onyinyechi Nwachukwu, in their fold. They defeated Cameroon 3-1 to
secure the bronze. The star of the Nigerian women’s team in the victory
over the Egyptians was Edem, who started proceedings by recording a 3-1
win over El-Dawlatly and concluded matters by defeating Hassan 3-2.

“I think confidence
won it for Nigeria; we knew before the match that it was a 50:50 but
the Nigerians were confident they could win and it worked for them,”
El-Dawlatly told the website of the table tennis world body, ITTF.com.
“We gave our best and it is always painful to lose in the final; let’s
hope we can do better next time.” For Effiom, who defeated El-Sokary to
give Nigeria a 2-1 lead after Ogundele had lost to Hassan, it was
delight and to some extent revenge. “I had played Sara El-Sokary in the
quarter-finals of the African Junior Championships last year in Congo
Brazzaville; she beat me in the quarter-finals,” she said. “In the
match today, I did not allow her to play her style and most certainly,
I am happy to be part of the team that won the gold for Nigeria.”

The championship continues today in Yaounde with the conclusion of the men’s and women’s singles events which began yesterday.