Gateway Games 2024: N-Youth Sports Academy Athletes performance excite management

N-Youth Sports Academy, Abuja has lauded the performance of its athletes at the just concluded 22nd National Sports Festival tagged ‘Gateway Games 2024 in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

The last thirty days at the N-Youth Sports Academy has been enthralling with a wide range of activities as both athletes and coaches have been kept busy with lots of quality training sessions, doping and management seminars and competition experiences.

The athletes competed in their first-ever national sports festival in Ogun State under a new umbrella of the National Sports Commission (NSC) Program as Invited Junior Athletes (IJA) few years after joining the Abuja-based sports academy under education and sports scholarship scheme.

Moreover, within a short time, the likes of Chigozie Rosemary Nwankwo, Adaeze Percious Ezeh (athletics), Unique Kamsiyona Umeh, Crown Umeh, and Andrew Miracle (taekwondo), and Chinedu Levi Dominic (football) made tremendous progress in their sports career.

Wearing their national colour with pride, Nwankwo who was initially disqualified in heat 2 of women’s 100m had another shot at redemption as she was reinstated for heat 6 of the women’s 100m.

At the end of the race, she ran the biggest race of her career so far, with a new personal best of 11.80s to finish 2nd behind Faith Osamuyi from Edo State.

Making statement as the fastest U-18 Nigeria athlete in 2025, the first time Nwankwo been on the highest World Athletics Ranking System.

As the race progressed, N-YSA’s Nwankwo ran two personal bests en route the final 24.41s in the heats, she ran much faster in the semis, clocking 24.25s to progress to the final where she narrowly missed the podium finishing 4th with the 24.39s.

Meanwhile, in the heat of the sports festival, the taekwondo team was ruled out of the mat in their semi final encounter while the IJA football team finished up in third place against host, Ogun State with a record of 2-1.