Sports
West Africa won five medals
Sportsmen from Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon inscribed the names of their respective countries on this year's Olympic medals table as the only three West African nations to win medals in Los Angeles.Nigeria won two medals (silver and bronze) when Peter Konyegwachie lost the final of the featherweight boxing contest to American M. Taylor, and its quartet in the 4× 400 metres relay, S. Uti, M. Ugbusien, R. Peters and I. Egbunike clocked 2.59:32 to place third to the United States and Great Britain.
The Ivorian silver medal was won in the 400 metres when Gabriel Tiacoh placed second in 44.54 seconds.
Morocco wins medal
Morocco's Nawal El Moutawakal, winner of last month's African Championships in the 400 metres hurdles was the first winner of the event introduced in the Olympics this year.The 20-year-old physical education student of Iowa University in the US returned 54.61 secs ahead of favoured Judi Brown (55.20 secs) of the US to set an Olympic record for the event. Romania's Christiana Cojocaru, last at the World Championships in Helsinki, was third in 55.41 seconds.
Nawal's victory was the first time an African woman has won a track or field medal in the Games in 32 years.
Olympic Games made millions
The Los Angeles Games yielded a multi-million dollar profit and set Olympic attendance records in almost all sports, the president of the Los Angeles Olympic Organising Committee, Mr Peter Ueberroth, told a news conference.Asked to sum up the game so far, Mr Ueberroth replied: "So far so good".
He said the surplus in some millions of dollars will go to youth organisations and sports organisations.
The games, the first to be financed by private enterprise, were dubbed "the hamburger Olympics" because of company sponsorship. One American television network paid 225 million dollars for broadcasting rights.
Mr Ueberroth said that there were 7,035 athletes, whose favourite food at the Olympic villages was steak and their favourite activity was disco dancing.
Why Africa could not televise the games
The Voice of Kenya has clarified its inability to carry out television coverage of the Los Angeles Olympic Games. This was due to the fact that the American Broad- casting Corporation bought all rights for television coverage of the Games and was selling copyrights at prices most developing countries could not afford.In order to assist broadcasting organisations in Africa, the Union of National Radio and Television Organisations of Africa, URTNA, consulted its members, some of whom agreed only recently to pool together and secure rights of television transmission.
Some members of the European Broadcasting Union, EBU, were approached for assistance and requested to make their domestic coverage available to developing countries. The BBC agreed to provide their domestic coverage to English-speaking African countries provided that the BBC was not required to produce special programmes.
The type of coverage provided by ABC has been criticised not only by Kenya and Zimbabwe. The president of the International Olympic Committee has also expressed dissatisfaction with ABC coverage, which has tended to concentrate on American competitors at the expense of others, particularly those coming from Africa and other developing countries.
Nigeria, Sierra Leone vie for WAFU Cup
WAFU Cup defending champions, New Nigeria Bank Football Club of Benin, will meet Fisheries FC of Sierra Leone in the semi-finals of the competition.Fisheries FC qualified for the semi-finals. when they beat 1982 champions, Hassacas FC of Ghana on penalty kicks. Hassacas won the first leg tie in Accra by a lone goal while the Sierra Leoneouns won the second leg in Freetown by the same margin.
In the penalty shoot outs, Fisheries netted four goals while Hassacas of Ghana scored only three goals. The Bankers qualified on 9-3 aggregate over Tangorzo FC of Niger.
The first leg of the semi-finals has been fixed for August 18 in Sierra Leone while the second leg will be played on September 2.
Hearts lift Bourkina Fasso Cup
Ghana's representatives, Accra Hearts of Oak, lifted the 'August 4 Trophy' when they beat the Chinese representative side 1-0 in the grand final of a seven-nation football tournament at the August 4 Stadium in Ouagadougou.Hearts striker Sam Yeboah, who scored the lone goal against China and netted in every match, also emerged the top scorer in the tournament which formed part of activities which marked the first anniversary celebrations of the August 4 Revolution of the people of Bourkina-Fasso, formerly Upper Volta.
In reaching the final, Hearts beat the Algerian and Niger sides 1-0 each and had a walk-over Libya in their Group 'B' pre- liminary matches.
Hearts went on to beat their hosts Bourkina-Fasso side 2-0 and again beat Algeria 4-2 on penalties in the semi-final matches to qualify to meet Group 'A' winners China in the final.
MEDALS TABLE (Final standings)
G S B TotalUnited States 88 61 30 174
Romania 20 16 17 53
West Germany 17 19 23 59
China 15 8 9 32
Italy 14 6 12 32
Canada 10 18 16 44
Japan 10 8 14 32
New Zealand 8 1 2 11
Yugoslavia 7 4 7 18
South Korea 6 6 7 19
Great Britain 5 11 21 37
France 5 7 15 27
Netherlands 5 2 6 13
Austria 4 8 12 24
Finland 4 2 6 12
Sweden 2 11 6 1
Mexico 2 3 1 6
Morocco 2 - - 2
Brazil 1 5 2 8
Spain 1 2 2 5
Belgium 1 1 2 4
Austria 1 1 1 3
Portugal 1 - 2 3
Kenya 1 - 2 3
Pakistan 1 - 2 3
Switzerland 1 - - 1
Denmark - 3 3 6
Jamaica - 1 2 3
Norway - 1 2 3
Greece - 1 1 2
Nigeria - 1 1 2
Puerto Rico - 1 1 2
Colombo -1 - 1
Egypt -1 - 1
Ireland -1 - 1
Ivory Coast -1 - 1
Peru -1 - 1
Syria -1 - 1
Thailand -1 - 1
Turkey - - 3 3
Venezuela - - 3 3
Algeria - - 2 2
Cameroon - - 1 1
Dominican Rep - - 1 1
Iceland - - 1 1
Chinese Taipei - - 1 1
Zambia - - 1 1
Total 226 219 242 687
