Sports Festival: Okowa to reward victorious Team Delta with N229m

Delta State Governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa has congratulated Team Delta for emerging victorious yet again in the just concluded 19th National Sports Festival.

This is even as the Team is to get a total of N2290 million going by the pledge made to them by the State governor to reward the team with one million naira for each gold medal, N500,000 for silver and N250,000 for bronze.

Team Delta emerged victorious at the the festival with 163 gold medals, 86 silver medals and 101 bronze medals to defend the throphy which they won at the Eko 2012 Festival.

Okowa who personally attended the closing ceremony of the games at the National Stadium Abuja, was elated that Team Delta set more games record on their way to successfully defending the National Sports Festival trophy.

In a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Charles Aniagwu on Monday in Asaba, the Governor thanked the Delta State Sports Commission, all team members, coaching crew and supporters for their hard work and dedication which culminated in the victory of Team Delta.

Delta state lifted the trophy for the 19th edition of the National Sports Festival bagging 163 gold medals to beat Rivers State which got 69 gold medals in 2nd position and Edo State in 3rd position with 47 gold medals.

Earlier at the closing ceremony, President Mohammadu Buhari congratulated Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State for his administration’s commitment to sports development.

Buhari who was represented at the ceremony by the Minister of Sports, Mr Solomon Dalung described the performance of Delta State as amazing, bagging a total of 352 medals.

In an interview at the closing, Governor Okowa congratulated Team Delta for emerging victorious despite being the defending champions.

According to him, “we are replicating what our late father, Dr Osaigbovo Ogbemudia thought us in old Bendel, we are not only developing sports facilities, we are doing all that we can to catch them young; we have the Principals and the Headmaster’s Cup and from January, we shall have athletics championship that will involve the secondary and primary schools in the state.”

“Beyond that, we will encouaage the young once to go into the future with the determination to succeed, we will continue to invest in sports, we congratulate Team Delta, they did very well and we are proud of them,” he said.