The Director General of Lagos State Sports Commission, Lekan Fatodu at Stephen Keshi Stadium, Asaba Thursday afternoon.
The U-15 National Youth Games (NYG) came to a close Thursday in Asaba, Delta State with the Lagos State Team maintain their second position on the final medal table released by the Main Organising Committee (MOC) of the championship.
The performance of the team in this year’s competition came with tremendous improvement with significance showing of strength in most sports competed for.
Interestingly, while Team Lagos ended last year’s edition of NYG with 21 gold, 19 silver and 21 bronze medals, this year, the youthful team hauled a total of 26 gold, 20 silver and 19 bronze medals totaling 65 medals.
Observers of the championship were so impressed with how Lagos was able to staged a late rally to overtake Team Edo into the second position in the final medal standings of the 8th NYG.
The hosts, Team Delta ran away with the title after winning 48 gold, 31 silver and 34 bronze medals.
“Lagos has proven with this remarkable outing that we are actually the set of people to look out for in the future of National Youth Ganes,” an elated Director General of Lagos State Sports Commission, Lekan Fatodu said during the closing ceremony at the Stephen Keshi Stadium in Asaba.
“You can see how we confidently stretched the hold on all gold medals in boxing, trounced Delta State. We took gold in basketball. And I must say that if we look at other areas we have competitive advantage, very soon we will pick the first position of this tournament,” he said.
The Director General emphasised that the state government’s policy thrust is to develop sports at the grassroots.
“The future of sports, particularly that is connected to talent and grassroots sports development, which is actually the focus of the National Youth Games, lies with Lagos State.
“We have programme in Lagos State that we just starting, sports talents in redefining success. We see these young people as the future of sports development in Lagos State. We are looking at them from the angle of sports development around education, what they are doing in schools, some who may like to go into entrepreneurship, how we can connect entrepreneurship with sports and these are the things Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu is doing in terms of deploying resources to sports to ensure talent identification and retention and equally improving in terms of welfare for the athletes in conjunction with the private sector because we know the government cannot do it alone.
“We are building the trust with the private sector, and I am happy to say that many of them are coming forward. Now, we have a lot of big names in the corporate world who want to join us in redefining sports in Lagos State. These people are dedicated to supporting grassroots sports development in Lagos State,” Fatodu said.
