As the curtain fell on the 6th National Youth Games (NYG) 2021 inside the University of Ilorin Complex, yesterday, Team Rivers emerged overall fifth with a record haul of medals.
Despite targeting a podium finish, the team recorded a total of 33 medals, 11 gold, eight silver and14 bronze medals to record her best performance and medal haul since the inception of the Games in 2013.
The team after a slow start was on line for a podium finish until a combination of late gold rush, particularly, by Lagos and Bayelsa teams and illluck in some medal contests saw them lose ground on the penultimate day of the Games.
However, Team Rivers was in the mix for the medal rush in the final two days as Daniel Mba secured gold in golf’s Ecletics event for boys with a total gross of 74 and Christie Obomanu won silver in match play for girls. She had won gold the previous day in stroke play with a score of 82 gross.
Basketball also delivered gold as the Fubara Onyenabo tutored boys showed class, dominating their Ebonyi counterparts 21 -12 in the semi final before edging out Bauchi 16-15 in the gold medal match. It was one of the most keenly contested basketball event in the history of the Games.
Tennis provided gold in the mixed event, Shot put, boys, a silver, 4 by 100 m, a bronze and Amarachukwu Ezeakor got silver in Chess.
Added to the basketball gold on the final day were a gold medal in Kung Fu, where Cynthia Phillips subdued her opponent from Nasarawa via Technical Knock Out (TKO).
During the closing ceremony, Rivers further secured silver and bronze in 4 by 400 mixed relay and 200m, boys.
For Team Delta, it was medal blitz from Day 1 to the last day, clinching the first position with a whopping haul of 114 medals, 60 gold, 26 silver and 28 bronze medals.
They were in a blitzing form on the final day, especially, the closing ceremony events, claiming all the four gold medals available in 200m girls, 200m boys, 4 by 100 m mixed relay and 4 by 400 m mixed relay.
Speaking just before the closing ceremony, the leader of Team Rivers delegation and Permanent Secretary of Rivers State Ministry of Sports, Sir Honour Sirawoo described the state’s performance as a tremendous achievement, finishing top five and recording the number of medals they did for the first time.
“The beauty of it all is that there’s improvement on performance, judging from previous performances in 2018 and 2019. In sports, what you desire is development and improvement. We have learnt our lessons from this experience and I assure that from next time, based on what we have discovered now, which we’re going to work on, we are definitely going to do better”.
Top 10 on the medal table are Delta with 114 medals, Lagos with 72 medals, Bayelsa with 46 medals, Ogun with 45 medals Edo with 40 medals, FCT with 36 medals, Rivers had 33 medals, the Host state; Kwara grabbed 32 medals, Oyo with 31 medals and Ondo state with 30 medals among every other performing states.

By: Gabriel Nwanetanya