Sports
2nd NDG: Rivers Chess Team Features Youngest Athletes, Wins Seven Medals
Even as Team Rivers performed far below expectations at the just-concluded second edition of the Niger Delta Games (NDG) held in Benin, Edo State, Rivers featured the youngest athletes in the competition.
This is worthy of commendation and emulation: that the Rivers State Chess met the aim and objective of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), which majorly sponsored the games with the view to develop and discover young talents.
It will interest you to know that the aim and objective of the Niger Delta Games was to discover hidden and young talents from the grassroots.
The youngest athletes are Rivers State indigenes from the Okrika Local Government Area. They competed in the chess event. They are Gardiner Maxwell Koko, age seven, and David Maxwell Koko, age eight.
Apart from being the youngest athletes, they both won bronze medals, which assisted Team Rivers in not being at the bottom of the medal table.
Comprehensively, the chess team went home with seven medals: one gold medal and six bronze medals. The team actually made a statement in the present circumstances.
Those that won the medals are John Nwachukwu, who won one gold and two bronze medals; Obakpororo Saints; Onengiyeofori Jack; Gardiner Maxwell Koko; and David Maxwell Koko, who all won bronze medals.
The coach of Rivers’s chess team, Nnamso Umoren, said he is excited that his team was on the podium in the second edition of NDG, saying that there will be improvement in the next edition.
“This performance from my players has inspired me to prepare them ahead of the third edition on time.
“Honestly speaking, team Rivers will do better in the third than what we achieved in Edo State,” Umoren said.
By: Tonye Orabere