joshua—— Hosts Edo 2nd Place
* Delta Is Next Host
By Ikhili Ebalu, Benin City
Defending champions Delta has emerged overall winners of the 20th National Sports Festival tagged ‘ Edo 2020’ Games having won the highest number of medals to retain the title they also won in Abuja games in 2018.
The Deltans harvested a total number of 384 medals, comprising 158 gold, 116 silver and 110 bronze, to emerge champions of the games ahead of the host Edo who gave a good account of themselves by surpassing their record at the 2018 Abuja games with a total of 341 medals made up of 129 Gold,104 silver and 108 Bronze
Delta will be keeping the giant Eagle gold cup,having won the title for a record third time consecutively; Lagos,Abuja and now Edo games. The champions have also been awarded the hosting right of the 21st edition as announced by the minister of sports Sunday Dare at the closing ceremony.
Bayelsa came out in a distant third place with 56 gold, 55 silver and 58 bronze to have a total of 169 medals, while Rivers are in fourth place with 33 gold, 34 silver and 61 Bronze, totaling 128 medals, pushing Lagos to fifth place with 32 gold, 40 silver and 54 Bronze medals to have a total of 126 medals while Taraba state are leaders from the bottom with two silver medals to show for their participation.
Meanwhile,Hosts Edo, on the final day of the games wrapped up their second place win with a gold medal in 4 by 4 Mixed Relay after returning in a time of 42.5 seconds,leaving the second and third positions for Lagos(42:08 Seconds) and Delta(42:95 sec). #
