It has not been medals haul as expected by Team Rivers at the ongoing 6th edition of the National Youth Games, NYG, in Ilorin as the contingent has struggled to move up the ladder on the medals table. 
As at Day 3 of the Games, Team Rivers has succeeded in garnering three gold, one silver and nine bronze medals.
The gold medals were won in swimming (2) and one in golf, the silver also came from golf, while the bronze came from gymnastics, swimming and Kokowa.
However, as at press time, some Team Rivers athletes were within range of medals in their events,   particularly, Canoeing, were the team had reached the semi-final stages in K1 200m, boys and girls and K1 200m, Para(boys) and mixed event.
Rivers athlete, Emmanuel Afamefuna, who is competing at the Games for the first time qualified for the final of the Darts event after upstaging the national number two in the semis.
In the other events, Rivers 13-years-old Favour Amaechi could not progress further after some brilliant performance in tennis (girls singles). She navigated the first round with an impressive two sets victory over her Akwa Ibom opponent only to lose to FCT, who fielded a clearly older player in the second round. Her boy’s counterpart, John Nubari also lost in the second round to Delta after beating Ekiti in the first round.
The basketball team, which is involved in a round robin games leads on points with two wins in as many games.
Ayo (boys and girls singles) also lost out at the quarter final stage to Akwa Ibom.
Team Rivers has unfortunatel, suffered disqualification in squash after beating Edo and Delta. The team was so disqualified because of not registering the required number of players in the event. The chess team was also involved in a difficult race to survive, trailing the front runners after the first round and blitz sessions.
One of the state’s major forte, cycling, has also failed to deliver a medal so far but the coach, Emmanuel Onisanya said he was happy with his team’s performance and still hopeful in the forthcoming events.
Meanwhile, the unofficial medals table shows that Team Delta leads the log comfortably with 32 gold medals; Edo State in distant second position follows with eight gold and Plateau State third with four gold medals.

By: Gabriel Nwanetanya