Sports
Forty-one African nations in Los Angeles
Sportsmen from forty-one African countries appearing in their traditional colours added glamour to a brilliant opening ceremony at the Los Angeles. Olympic Games. The games are being attended by a record 140 countries and Africa also has its highest representation after missing two Olympiads through political boycotts.Three African countries - Ethiopia, Angola and Upper Volta stayed away. Ethiopia and Angola joined a Soviet Union led boycott and Upper Volta refused to participate alongside what it called supporters of apartheid in South Africa - a reference to England which sent a rugby team to the republic.
African boxers clear first hurdle
Three Nigerian boxers were through to the next stage of the Olympic boxing elimina- tion series. They are Christopher Ossai, a Commonwealth games gold medalist in the lightweight division who outpointed his opponent from Burma, Zaw Latt, light welterweight Charles Nwokolo who beat his Zambian opponent D. Chisala and middle- weight J. Okorodudu who outpointed P. Laasanen of Finland.In the absence of the East Germans, Russians and Cubans, boxing presents a very fertile area for Africans to look for medals. The experience gained from the pre-Olympic boxing camp in Lagos in which nine countries took part should also enable the African boxers to win medals.
Other African boxers who cleared their first hurdles are J.P. Nanga of Cameroon who beat P. Pinder of the Bahamas on points in the light heavyweight division and G. Sery of the Ivory Coast who stopped S. Aumua of Samoa in the second round of their light middleweight contest.
African boxers who have been eliminated include Ghana's Ebo Dankwa who lost to Ben Hain of Israel, P. Mella of Cameroon who lost to R. Labrosse of Seychelles and D. Traore of Mali who was beaten by J. Kiriisa, a Ugandan light heavyweight.
Two teams establish lead
Traditional league champions have opened a gap between them and the rest of the clubs after nineteen matches of the Division One League.DIVISION ONE TABLE
Teams P W D L GF GA PTS GD
IICC 19 8 9 2 19 9 25 +10
Rangers 19 8 9 2 16 8 25 +8
Abiola 19 9 6 5 19 13 22 +6
Rovers 19 8 6 5 20 15 22 +5
Bendel 17 7 7 3 20 12 21 18 +8
NN Bank 16 5 8 3 13 18 +5
Spartans 17 6 5 6 18 16 17 +2
ACB 18 6 4 8 19 23 16 -4
First Bank 18 6 4 8 12 17 16 -5
Jets 17 7 19 19 23 15 -4
DIC 19 2 11 6 10 17 14 -7
Raccah 18 4 14 6 30 4 -24
African nations lose in Soccer
African football failed to lift itself at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles when all three representatives of the continent, Cameroon, Egypt and Morocco lost their first matches. Cameroon lost 1-2 to Yugoslavia, Egypt were beaten 2-1 by Italy while Morocco were defeated 2-0 by West Germany.Boy's competition introduced
A new competition for under 13-year-old boys has been introduced by the Nigerian Football Association (NFA). The NFA said the competition, which would be known as the NFA youth cup competition, would start in September every year.It said that the competition would be played in the first two years on state basis with finals coming up on the 27th of May - Children's Day of every year. The competition, it said, would go national as from 1987. Eagles back to camp Nigeria's national team, the Green Eagles, will report to camp on August 22 at Jos Plateau State. The decision to camp the Eagles in Jos is to dissuade team officials from going to camp to ask for the release of their boys for league matches. The NFA also decided that on no account should players in the camp play for the clubs during league matches.
The rationale behind the decision is that the nation comes first but since clubs like IICC, Rangers, Bendel and New Nigerian Bank were representing the nation in competitions they were being allowed to use various continental and sub-regional their players as the league serves as trial matches for their preparations. Flying Eagles regroup Members of the Flying Eagles have regrouped to prepare for the defence of the Shagari Cup and next year's Junior World Cup qualifying series. They are being handled by Chris Udemezue one of the top coaches that led them to last year's junior World Cup finals in Mexico.
The NFA said that in view of complaints from various quarters that enough scouting was not being done before players were called to camp, state FA's have been direc- ted to send two players whom they think are potential Eagles but who have been rotting away, for a two-week screening starting on August 5 in Lagos.
