Team Delta State has emerged the overall winner of the 19th National Sports Festival held between December 6-16, 2018 at the National Stadium Abuja.
Team Delta won 163 gold medals, 88 silver and 101 bronze medals to beat the other participating teams.
While this is the fifth time Delta will be coming first at the National Sports Festival, this is their best showing going by the number of medals they won in total.
Interestingly, Delta State first won the festival when Abuja hosted the biennial games in 2004.
At this year’s festival, Rivers State finished second with 69 gold, 58 silver and 57 bronze medals.
Edo State finished third with 47 gold, 41 silver and 53 bronze medals.
Team Lagos got a total 146 medals with a breakdown showing 36 gold, 37 silver and 73 bronze medals to finish in fourth position.
While every state present in Abuja won at least a medal, seven did not win any gold medal.
They are Borno, Gombe, Ekiti, Zamfara, Adamawa, Taraba and Sokoto states.
Ebonyi and Katsina states were absent at the 19th National Sports Festival.
Team Delta’s Tobi Amusan won gold and set a new record of 13.04 seconds in the 100 meters Women’s Hurdles erasing the previous of record Amaka Ogboegbunam of 13.45 seconds, which was set at the KADA 2009 games.
Day 4 of Athletics at the 19th National Sports Festival (NSF) had seen the duo of Queen Obisesan of Delta and Grace Anigbata of Bayelsa emerge as the standout athletes after the pair set new Festival Records in the Hammer Throw and Triple Jump respectively.
Queen Obisesan, who is the former national record holder in the event, erased Vivian Chukwuemeka’s 12-year-old record of 61.38 meters, which she set at the Gateway Games in 2006, replacing it with a superior mark of 64.96 meters.
Grace Anigbata set a new record of 13.76 meters surpassing Otonye Iworima’s former record of 13.60 meters set in 2006 at the Gateway Games.
Reigning African champion, Ese Brume, set a new Championship record in the Women’s Long Jump event with a leap of 6.62 meters to claim gold and also surpass the former record of 6:39 meters held by Chinedu Udozor.
