Team Delta set new National Sports Festival records

The Team Delta have set new National Sports Festival records at the ongoing fiesta in Abuja. Deborah Okpochini, a swimmer set two new records in1500m Freestyle women swimming and 100m Freestyle Swimming. She had on Saturday posted a time of 1.03.05sec in the 100m Freestyle Swimming, thus breaking a 27-year old record previously set by Ikaghoemi Joshua while featuring for Rivers State at the 1991 edition of the game.

Not yet done, she again broke and set another festival record in 1500m freestyle women swimming on Sunday, posting a time of 21:05.10 to confine to the dustbin the record set by Blessing Forcados of Delta State.

Blessing had posted a time of 21:26.88 in 2006 at the 15th National Sports Festival “Gateway Games” in Ogun State.

Similarly, Nmor Ifeakachukwu on Sunday broke a 6-year old record in 200m individual medley men previously set by Kingsley Forcados in 2012.

Nmor posted a time of 02:18.44 to beat Kingsley’s 2:20.94 time set at the 18th National Sports Festival in Lagos.

Meanwhile, as at the time of writing this report, Team Delta led the medal table with 19 medals which comprises of 13 gold, 1 silver, 5 bronze.

Team Rivers whose athletes are battling with their state government over the non payment of their allowances are second on the table with 23 medals (5 gold, 7 silver, 11 bronze).

Team Kano, Edo and Lagos complete the top 5 with a total of 14,14,18 medals respectively.

However, 15 states are yet to win a single medal. The states are Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Borno, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Jigawa, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Plateau, Sokoto, Taraba, Zamfara.