Team South Africa won the competition with a total of 155 medals – 61 gold, 55 silver and 40 bronze, while the Algiers 2007 winners Egypt came second after chalking up 66 medals – 32 gold, 14 silver, 20 bronze. Team Nigeria placed third with 98 medals – 31 gold, 28 silver, 39 bronze.
Tunisia took fourth with 68 medals – 29 gold, 26 silver, 23 bronze followed by Algeria in the fifth position with 84 medals – 22 gold, 29 silver and 33 bronze.
Johannesburg ’99 winners with 71medals, South Africa dominated the Maputo 2011 swimming event clearing 33 gold, 24 silver, 18 bronze, while Egypt relied on the combat sports, tennis and table tennis to overtake Nigeria, who dominated athletics (including para-athletics) with 18 gold, 13 silver, 22 bronze at the Games.
Team Nigeria were cruising to a second place until the Egyptians’ late rally, winning five gold on Saturday – in judo (one), handball (one), taekwondo (one) and tennis (two) – ensured they came behind South Africa.
Fifty countries competed at the Maputo Games with at least 5,000 athletes vying for honours in athletics, badminton, basketball, boxing, canoeing, chess, cycling and football. There were also gymnastics, handball, judo, karate, netball, rowing, rugby, sailing, and shooting.
The others were swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, triathlon, volleyball and weightlifting.
Team Nigeria Chef de Mission, Alhassan Yakmut, who praised the athletes for giving their best at the competition, insisted the country would have won the competition if wrestling, powerlifting and weightlifting had been included in Maputo 2011.
“South Africa won because they dominated swimming,” he said.
“We’ve learned some lessons and we are going to plan heavily for the 2015 All Africa Games (in Congo).
“We’ll soon release our development plan for sports such as swimming, karate, taekwondo and other multi-medal sports.”
He regretted that Team Nigeria failed to win gold in judo on the last day of competition, saying the country had relied on the medals to beat Egypt to the third place.
Yakmut revealed that Nigeria would only participate in six sports at the London Olympic Games next year.
The sports are athletics, wrestling, weightlifting, taekwondo and para-athletics.
The former Nigeria Premier League Secretary said the National Sports Commission took the decision to enable Nigeria to feature in sports they were sure of winning medals.
According to the NSC top official, the body used the world standards to arrive at the decision, adding that only athletes in the six sports distinguished themselves at various international competitions.
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