Games-South Africa take unbeatable lead in medal table
05:48 p.m Sep 18, 1999 Eastern
JOHANNESBURG, Sept 18 (Reuters) - South Africa took an unassailable lead at
the top of the All Africa Games medal table on Saturday, the penultimate day
of the competition.

South Africa finished with 66 golds medals followed by Nigeria with 55 and
Egypt in third place with 51.

The host's success, spearheaded by their world-class swimmers, failed to
overshadow a dazzling track performance by Nigeria's athletes who swept to
seven golds on Saturday.

Nigeria's Glory Alozie dominated the women's 100m hurdles leading from start
to finish clocking 12.74 secs.

Besides Alozie, the green and white colours also won both the men's and
women's 200m, the high jump, the shot put and both 4x400m relays.

But the race of the meeting proved to be the men's 400m relay, the final
event of the evening. In front of a crowd of 10,000, the biggest turnout
since the start of the Games, South Africa ended the second leg 10 metres
ahead of the Nigerians.

After the third leg, the top four teams were all close and in a nailbiting
final lap Nigeria's Sunday Bada pulled clear, clocking three minutes 01.20
seconds. South Africa, who were fourth at the recent world championships,
took second in 3:01.34 and Kenya third in 3:01.73.

In the sprints, Nigeria's world championship bronze medallist Francis
Obikwelu lived up to his billing as pre-race favourite clocking 20.06
seconds, while Fatimu Yusuf, sixth at the world championships, won the
women's event in 22.45.

Nigeria also picked up their first field event gold medals when Anthony
Idiata survived a jump off to win the high jump and Vivian Chukwuemeka won
the shot put.

Outside Nigeria's sizzling display there was a star performace from world
championship silver medallist Maria Mutola of Mozambique who clocked an
impressive altitude time of 1:59.73 to win the 800m.

In the men's 1,500m Ethiopia's Hailu Mekonen beat Kenyan world championship
finalist David Lelei, while Julius Gitahi upstaged Ethiopia Fita Bayissa in a
thrilling 5,000m. Gitahi clocked 13:49.06 and Bayissa 13:49.79.

South Africa's dominance in the field events continued when former world
champion Marius Corbett won the javelin with a distance of 78.74 metres.

The men's hockey gold went to South Africa who comprehensively beat rivals
Egypt 4-0. South Africa's women hockey players also scooped gold by
overpowering Zimbabwe 8-0.

Baseball was won by South Africa who dominated the event throughout. The
hosts beat Nigeria 19-1 to take the title.

Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia won in the women's freestyle wrestling, the
event's debut at the Games.

Honours in men's individual Kumite competition in karate were shared betwen
Algeria, Senegal, Egypt and Tunisia.

Lesotho were denied a clean sweep of all four taekwondo medals by Cote
d'Ivoire's Konan Sebastien in the men's lightweight class.

Kenya came out victors in the women's volleyball by beating Egypt and
Cameroon won the men's event overcoming Nigeria. Cameroon are also firm
favourites to win the soccer gold on Sunday when they face Zambia in the
final at the Johannesburg stadium in the last event of the Games.


Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.

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