5th Aug 2014 The Commonwealth Games are over and the athletes are on their way home as we speak, but how well did Africa do? Not bad it seems, a look at the medals table shows us 3 teams in the top 10 and 5 in the top 20. South Africa led Africa at 7th position with 13 gold medals, 10 silver and 17 bronze medals to equal 40. Pretty impressive, although it falls below their target of 43 for these games.
Nigeria followed closely behind at 8th position with 11 gold, 11 silver and 14 bronze medals to equal 36. Kenya was 9th with 10 gold medals, 10 silver medals and 5 bronze medals for a total of 25 medals altogether. Cameroun, Uganda and Botswana brought up the top 20 at 17th, 18th and 20th position with 5, 5 and 1 medals respectively
Some of the stand out medals were Ese Brume’s gold in the women’s long jump with a leap of 6.56m. The medal is Nigeria’s first gold medal in this event in 14 years.
Track Queen Blessing Okagbare became the first Nigerian to win both the 100 and 200metres with a time of 22.25 seconds. She might have made a treble with the long jump but she opted for her track event after discovering that both events clashed. It’s all good though, since Nigeria on gold in both events.
20 year old Nijel Amos caused one of the biggest upsets of the races when he defeated Olympic 800m champion and world record holder David Rudisha. Rudisha had an injury filled 2013 and conceded that perhaps he wasn’t at his peak.
Nigeria’s para-athletes did the country proud with gold medals and world records from Loveline Obiji in the women’s heavyweight category and Esther Oyema in the women’s lightweight.
Nigeria’s men were outshone by the women this year it seems, but Abdulazeez Ibrahim did a good job with a gold in the men’s Heavyweight Group A. Paul Kehinde also won a gold in the men’s lightweight Group A category, and fellow Nigerian compatriot, Rolland Ezuruike, won a silver. Nigeria’s Tosin Oke also contributed a medal with a silver in the men’s triple jump.