•Claims sprint double at Med-View/NUJ Media Games
Lagos Information has emerged the overall winners of the 2014 Med-View/NUJ Games with six gold, two silver and six bronze medals. Voice of Nigeria (VON) came second with four gold, one silver and one bronze medals; while the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) placed third with two gold, one silver and one bronze medals.
Modupe Iyiola
With two gold medals won on the final day of the Games, five-month-old TheNiche newspaper finished fourth on the overall medals table.
Thanks to two gold medals won by Modupe Iyiola in the athletics event on the closing day at the main bowl of the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos.
Iyiola returned a time of 16.03secs to win the 100m women’s final ahead of Rashidat Ogunleye of Lagos Information who returned a time of 16.07secs, while Tolani Saliu also of Lagos Information came a distant third with a time of 17.08secs.
Few minutes after the race, Iyiola was on the track again for the 200m women’s final and she beat the duo of Gbemisola Babatunde and Biola Buraimoh of Lagos Information.
Iyiola returned a time of 34.05secs to win her second gold medal for TheNiche, while Babatunde returned in a time of 36.07secs and Buraimoh 36.09secs.
A total of 20 media organisations in Lagos Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) participated in this year’s Games which featured eight sporting events namely football, athletics, scrabble, chess, draught, ayo, table tennis and tug-of-war.
A highlight of the closing ceremony was the football final between two print media, Vanguard and SportsDay.
After regular duration time with no goal on either side, Vanguard went on to win the match 2-1 on spot kicks.
SuperSports won the third place match.
Vanguard went home with a giant trophy and N50,000 cash prize, while SportsDay received a trophy and N30,000 cash. SuperSports received a trophy and N20,000 cash.
However, for paucity of funds, others who won medals outside football did not get any financial reward – only medals.
Chairman of the Lagos NUJ, Deji Elumoye, expressed appreciation to the major sponsor of the Games, Med-View Airline, as well as partners, Lafarge and Seven-Up Bottling Company, for associating with the body this year.
He promised that with the support from the sponsors and partners, next year’s edition will be unique.
“We thank Med-View for sponsoring this year’s edition of the Games and our partners, Lafarge and Seven-Up Bottling Company. We hope they will be there for us next year, and with their support, I want to promise that next year’s edition will be better than this year’s,” said Elumoye.
