Team Delta has emerged as the champions of the 18th National Sports festival tagged “Eko 2012”, after amassing the highest number of medals at the 13 day Sports fiesta.
For winning the competition, Delta will be rewarded with 20 million promised by President Goodluck Jonathan to the eventual winner.
Over 8,000 athletes competed in 25 events at festival, which started November 27 and ended December 9 with the entire funfair and a great musical show put up by the hosts, Lagos at the main venue Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere.
With 11th Gold, 99 Silver and 75 Bronze medals, Delta dethroned the defending champions, Rivers State that gathered 76 Gold, 71 Silver and 70 Bronze medals.
The hosts of the competition, Lagos has 64 Gold, 47 Silver and 71 Bronze medals.
Imo State won only 7 Gold, 15 Silver and 18 Bronze medals to finish a disappointing 11th position on the final medals table, a disappointing outing compared to 8th position they placed in “Garden City 2011 with 61 medals.
Host of the next festival Cross River placed eight with 12 gold, 14 silver and 3 bronze medals.
29 states have at least one gold, while eight remaining states are without any gold medal.
One significant improvement from previous festival is that all the participating states won medals with the least state being Katsina which has one bronze medals to finish 37 on the medal table.
The competition was not without it’s ugly incidents as state imported athletes from outside the country while some competed with athletes already registered by another state.
Host, Lagos however performed poorly in some of their event views as athletes were also not given the type of feeding every one expected, but above all for once, a state didn’t host to win at all cost.
However, this goes a long way to show that for you to win and win convincingly, you must start taking sports seriously like Delta, Rivers, Lagos, Edo etc as Imo failed as a result of neglect on the part of Government.
