Executive Chairman of Lagos State Sports Commission, Dr Kweku Tandoh has poured glowing encomiums on two Lagos athletes who did Nigeria proud by winning gold medals in their respective sports at the ongoing All Africa Games in Rabat, Morocco.
Badminton player, Anuoluwapo Opeyori overcame Algeria’s Youcef Medel Sabri with a 2-0 to win in the Men’s Singles of the Badminton event. The first match was hard-fought, but Anuoluwapo Opeyori won 23-21 before taking the second game with relative ease, winning 21-11.
Unfavoured Nigeria’s Olajide Omotayo conquered three of the best players in Africa in the table tennis event to be crowned the champion to come out of the continent.
From the quarterfinal stage, Omotayo worked his way to the final beating two former champions – Egypt’s Ahmed Saleh and Nigeria’s Segun Toriola in the quarterfinal and semifinal stages.
The final produced the best of Africa with Aruna Quadri going up against Omotayo and the fans were treated to an exciting match.
Omotayo threw caution to the wind and raced to the lead with a 3-0 (13-11, 11-9, 16-14) but experienced Quadri cut the lead to 3-2 with 8-11, 13-15 wins in the fourth and fifth games.
The sixth match was a display of energy and skills and it was the younger Omotayo that scaled through with 12-10 win to claim the second gold medals for Nigeria in the table tennis event of the multi-sports fiesta.
Tandoh, who is in Rabat to watch proceedings of the All Africa Games, thumbed up both Anuoluwapo and Omotayo for their ‘golden’ performance. He said they are not only good ambassadors of Nigeria, but they also made Lagos state proud.
