4th NYG: Tandoh Hails Team Lagos Performance, Says The Athletes Make Us Proud

The contingents of Lagos State participating in the ongoing National Youth Games in Ilorin, Kwara State have received a pat on the back for doing the state proud.

The commendation is coming from the Executive Chairman of Lagos State Sports Commission (LSSC), Dr.Kweku Tandoh, who told PM EXPRESS Thursday afternoon that he was so happy with the conduct of the athletes, coaches and officials at the games, which is taking place at the University of Ilorin.

Tandoh said that he was impressed with the results coming out from Team Lagos outing in the ongoing competition.

“Our team are doing great in this competition and I’m impressed with the results. The results coming in cut across all sports both individuals and team sports. I’m so much proud of these young athletes,” he said.

To the chairman, the results have shown that what the administration of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode is doing in sports through the Sports Commission in Lagos State is yielding results and futuristic.

“Since the beginning of this year, we have been exposing these athletes to various school sports championships to put them in readiness for any national competition. These National Youth Games is a good platform to test them and I can see that they don’t disappoint us.

“The National Youth Games has given them the opportunity to test their strength in competitive competitions.

“Let me state here that we see the National Youth Games as a developmental event, and this really suit our focus in Lagos to development our crops of athletes. The results in Ilorin have shown that our athletes are doing great to become future stars.

“We are not in Ilorin to win at all cost. Fighting tooth and nail to top the medal table, no! We want to let our athletes express themselves and compete with their colleagues across the country and to showcase what they have learnt from our seasoned coaches and officials,” Tandoh stated.

Meanwhile, Team Lagos have made their presence felt on the medal table in 15 out of 25 sports being competed for at the National Youth Games.

The medal table as released by Team Lagos Technical Committee Secretariat around 5:30pm Thursday showed that Lagos has hauled a total number of 40 medals comprise 14 gold, 10 silver and 16 bronze medals.

The breakdown shows that 1 silver and 1 bronze medals were won in Ayo, 1 gold in basketball, 1 silver in beach volleyball,, 1 bronze in football, a haul of 4 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze medals in gymnastics, karate produced 1 gold, 1 bronze and 1 bronze medal in kokowa.

Para Table Tennis gave 2 bronze, 1 gold, 1 silver in scrabble, 1 gold in squash, swimming has produced 3 silver and 1 bronze, 2 silver, 1 bronze in table tennis, while taekwondo has produced 1 bronze medals,

It was gold rain in weightlifting with 6 gold medals and 1 bronze medal with wrestling producing 1 bronze.

“Our athletes are in great frame of mind to haul in more medals for us as the games progresses,” Tandoh concluded.

The Dr Kweku Tandoh’s Interview:

What he think of Team Lagos performance so far?

I must say it has been very encouraging. Since I arrived for the games, I moved around to see various events that we are taking part in and the Lagos state team have been doing very well. I’m really impressed more particularly because to assess what we have been doing in terms of development over the past nine months and there about. It also emphasizes for us that we are in the right direction with Gymnastics, Weightlifting, Squash, Taekwondo, Wrestling and all other sports at the under 15 level. This is the level where you identified new talents and nurtured them. This has been our focus in Lagos State with the support of His Excellency, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and I must say that I’m impressed with our performance so far and believe even before the end the games end, we will get more exciting performance in the remaining sports.

How he described the impact of Team Lagos participation?

I know for us that we have put a good performance and I think we can go back after the games and analyse the areas we identified to have competitive advantage and strengthen those. areas where we may have put in not too impressive performance. We will look at how we can improve against the next edition of the National Youth Games.

On using of over age athletes.

I must commend the Ministry of Youth and Sports for what it has done in the issue of using over age athletes at the games. They’ve done very well this time. Everything cannot be perfect but from what I have seen at the venues that I have been to, the ages of these children are relatively around the same bracket. The Ministry has done very well, but we can improve upon this of course by using scientific method but so far, the Ministry has tried.

Ayo team at the games