ABUJA, 20 October 2003 — Hosts Nigeria topped the final medals as the controversy-hit Eighth All Africa Games closed here Saturday night.
The leadership in the medals table was contested down to the wire between Nigeria and Egypt before the hosts upstaged the North Africans on the final day of competition to finish with 85 gold, 90 silver and 56 bronze medals.
Egypt recorded 81 gold, 66 silver and 71 bronze while South Africa, who hosted and won the last edition of the event, placed third with 63 gold, 59 silver and 52 bronze.
Egypt pressed Nigeria hard courtesy of their impressive showings in the combat sports of karate, judo and taekwando as well as weightlifting, which Nigeria had dominated four years ago in Johannesburg with their women lifters hauling an impressive 21 gold medals.
This was Nigeria’s first ever top place finish since the games began in Congo Brazzaville in 1965. They had placed second to Egypt when they hosted the sports festival 30 years ago in Lagos.
Despite the absence of many of the continent’s top stars, several African and games records were set in athletics, swimming, weightlifting and special sports.
However, the Nigerian organizers grappled with logistic problems caused by 23 sports being spread over 21 different venues with 52 countries represented.
“Nigeria took the games to another level in terms of size and the state-of-the-art facilities that it provided and it will take something special from another country to match for many years to come,” said Mumini Alao, an official of the local organizing committee.
Attendances though were very poor at almost all the venues thereby forcing organizers to throw the gates open for all the events including football which expectedly drew the biggest crowd of 60,000 the final day of the men amd women’s tournaments.
The elaborate closing ceremony at the Abuja National Stadium was delayed for several hours as a result of a rain storm which wrecked both the indoor sports hall and the velodrome specially built for the games.
Algeria, which played host to the competition for the first time in 1978, will host the next games in 2007.
