The 2023 African Games kicked off on 8 March, with the official opening ceremony in Ghana’s capital, Accra.
The sporting event, previously known as the All-African Games, is held every four years, specifically the year preceding the Olympics. With 52 participating countries this year, it truly embodies a pan-African competition.
5,000 athletes are competing for medals and striving to set new records across 30 sporting disciplines, marking an expansion from the 26 sports featured in the 2019 African Games and the 22 disciplines in the 2015 edition. Events are being held in Accra, Cape Coast and Kumasi.
Table tennis was the first event to launch, with Egypt clinching the gold medal in both the men’s and women’s singles events, while the football competition kicked off later. Nigeria has been a powerhouse in African sports, consistently contributing to the medal tally.
Exploring Nigeria’s past medal count
Nigeria has won a total of 1326 medals across all editions of the African Games.
The country’s athletes have secured 470 gold medals, 428 silver medals, and 428 bronze medals in various sports.
Some notable performances
Ruth Ayodele recently won three gold medals in the 64kg, snatch (94kg), and clean and jerk (114kg) weightlifting events. Also, Joy Eze won three gold medals in the 71kg, lifting total (207kg), snatch (90kg), and clean and jerk (117kg). Nigeria also has total dominance in the weightlifting event at the games
Nigeria’s football teams, the Flying Eagles and the Falconets, both won their matches. The Falconets trash Senegal 4-0 to move to the semi-final
In the women’s wrestling events, Nigeria secured six gold medals. Athletes like Mercy Genesis, Christiana Ogunsanya, and Odunayo Adekuoroye dominated their respective weight categories.
As of now, Egypt leads the medal table, followed closely by Nigeria, then Algeria, South Africa, and Tunisia.
On March 13, the Nigerian women’s cricket team beat their Ugandan counterparts by 3 wickets to pick up the bronze medal at the ongoing All Africa Games in Ghana.
As of March 13, 2024, Nigerian athletes had won the second-highest number of medals. The Nigerian team is still second to the clear 2024 All African Games table toppers, Egypt, who seem set to be the overall winner of the sports festival, which started in Accra, Ghana, in the first week of March 2024.
On the other hand, Team Nigeria, who finished second overall four years ago in Morocco, is still sitting in second place in this ongoing edition of the African Games.
Thus far, Nigerian athletes have recorded 22 gold medals, 10 silver medals, and 16 bronze medals at the sports festival. This means that Nigeria must win a minimum of an additional 32 gold medals before they can get close to Egypt in terms of the total number of gold medals won at the tournament.
Other countries that are currently in the top five of the medal table at the African Games are Algeria, South Africa, and Tunisia.
The 13th African Games wrap up on March 23, 2024.