Executive Chairman of Lagos State Sports Commission, Dr Kweku Adedayo Tandoh has emphasised that the good things going for Lagos State in Nigerian sports are that the system has always been working strictly by the rules of the games.
Lagos State is currently participating in the 5th National Youth Games in Ilorin, Kwara State, north-central Nigeria and the state presented no fewer than 248 athletes in 34 sports in the competition meant for the U-15 athletes.
Since the competition started Lagos has not short of winning medals, an improvement compared to the state’s outing last year.
“We recorded improvement on the performances of Team Lagos at the 2019 Games. For us, it has been nothing but excellent, considering the fact that, we presented Under-15 athletes as stipulated by the rules of the Games’ organizers,” said Tandoh, a sports administrator per excellence.
“Last year was our first participation in the National Youth Games and we finished second place despite not taking part in all the sports. At the end of the Games, we went back and decided to re-strategize and some of those strategies have worked for us, as we strongly gave consideration to some of the sports we have a comparative advantage.
“We are beginning to see the results, so far, the Team Lagos has done very well, with the even spread of medals covering various sports, and it gives us a good advantage. We believe so much that at the end of the Games we would have put up our best performance so far in the history of the National Youth Games.”
He stressed that “We take delight in the overwhelming improvement and top performance of Team Lagos in the swimming event. This was a sport that we won only silver and a bronze in the last edition of the festival. This year, we won five gold medals, nine silver and one bronze in swimming.
“In this year’s Youth Games, out of the 248 athletes presented by Team Lagos for the Games, only two were screened out by the facial analysis screening methodology approach by the NYG screening team.
“This improvement was made possible by a carefully selected training and developmental regime put in place by the Lagos Sports Commission, with the support of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who himself is a passionate follower of sports.
“It was also a one hundred per cent performance in the football event, where Team Lagos won all the available gold medals in the event, in the male and female categories.”
