Team Nigeria finishes ninth at Commonwealth Games
After 11 days of gruelling competition in 7 out of the 19 sports approved, Team Nigeria emerged as the ninth best team at the just concluded 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India.
Amassing a total of 11 gold, 10 silver and 13 bronze medals, Nigeria finished the competition as the third best African team with South Africa leading the pack and Kenya coming a close second. Nigeria was one gold medal away from clinching Africa’s top spot. The Australian team emerged champions for the umpteenth time, winning a record seventh title in a row with a total of 177 medals. For Nigeria, the feat attained in Delhi is the best for the country in recent times, second only to the 1994 Victoria Games in Canada where the country amassed 37 medals, 11 of which are Gold medals.
Bio leads team back to Nigeria
The Team Nigeria contingent will be led home today by the Sports Minister and Chairman of the National Sports Commission, Ibrahim Isa Bio. They are expected to arrive at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, at 7.00pm local time. When the team left for Delhi, India last month, nobody gave them a chance, with some bookmakers writing them off, and posited that they will not win anything. The bookmakers were proven wrong from day one when Nigeria won the first gold medal of the games. The success story continued from that day with the team winning on the average, a gold medal for every day of the 11 day fiesta. Nigeria won medals in weightlifting, power lifting, wrestling and athletics.
Speaking on the team success in Delhi, leader of the delegation to games, Bio, attributed the contingent’s success to the backing the sports commission got from President Goodluck Jonathan “The president is our number one supporter, he not only gave financial backing, he also supported as a fan, his words of encouragement and advises contributed immensely to our good outing in Delhi,” he said.
Already, the athletes are already getting the reward for the hard work in India with the Sports Commission doling out monies as a means of appreciating the athletes. Each gold medallist pocketed the sum $6, 800, while the silver medallists were given $3, 800 and bronze medallists $2, 500. Bio also said he was very impressed with the way and manner athletes and most officials had conducted themselves despite the challenges. “We were only able to pay the athletes their allowances this week but in spite of this there were no incidents of indiscipline amongst them, rather they faced their main goal of doing well at the Games,” he said. “And they can attest to it that immediately the money came we handed it out”
Closing ceremony
As the curtains were drawn on the 19th Commonwealth Games, the impressive closing ceremony, held on Thursday, will be remembered by people who love the traditional dance and art forms of India. One of the special features of the ceremony was ‘Agni’ or, the fire. Presented at the outset of the ceremony, ‘Agni’ displayed a matchless confluence of martial art forms from different parts of the country. About 800 performers displayed the best of their states through traditional martial art in a conflagration of light and sound to hundreds of drum beats.
Kerala’s Kalaripayatt, Manipur’s Thang Ta, Punjab’s Gatka, Silambam from Tamil Nadu, Gujarat’s Talwaar Raas and Naga Warriors with their machetes came together in a high-intensity eight-minute performance. There were all sorts of swords, sticks and spears, and spectators were reminded of India’s martial art traditions dating back many centuries. The next edition of the Commonwealth Games will be staged in Glasgow, United Kingdom in 2014.
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