Nigeria tops Africa gold medal chart at Rio Paralympics
The Rio 2016 Paralympic Games came to a close on Sunday at the packed Maracanã Stadium, in Rio, Brasil, as Nigeria emerged with the highest number of medals for Africa.
Nigeria topped the gold medals table in the African category with eight (8) gold medals, two silver and two bronze medals each and placed 17th on the world gold medal chart with a total of 12 medals.
Tunisia and South Africa both won seven gold and six silver and bronze medals each, as they both finished with a total of 19 and 17 medals respectively and placed 21st and 22nd finish respectively.
In all, 43 African countries participated in the 15th edition of the Paralympic Games, which had 2,347 medals up for grabs in the games.
The tournament, which was topped by China in the gold medal table with a total of 107, was followed by Great Britain, Ukraine, USA and Australia, with 64, 61, 40 and 22 gold medals respectively.
Ghana lost out on the medals table as Nigeria, Tunisia, South Africa, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, Namibia, Kuwait and Cote D’ivoire completed the gold medal table for Africa respectively.
The closing ceremony which was to pay tribute to Bahman Golbarnezhad, an Iranian cyclist who died on Saturday saw singers, dancers and fireworks lit up the Maracanã stadium.
Source: GNA