Team Nigeria win gold in football tournament

 
The Nigerian Unified Football team won gold in the Special Olympics World Summer Games.

Nigeria’s Unified Football  team emerged the winner of the 7-Aside Unified Soccer tournament, at the just concluded Special Olympics 2015 World Summer Games in Los Angeles, USA.

The team, clinched the Gold medal after defeating the Russian team in an intense final match that was decided on penalty shoot outs after a 2-2 draw at full time.

The match ended in a 4-3 victory in favour of the Nigerian team.

Team Nigeria beat South Africa 6-0, Burkina Faso 3-1 and the highly rated German team by 1-0 to get to the final of the competition.

Prior to the tournament, a host of Nigerian former football stars including Daniel Amokachi, Emmanuel Babayaro, Peter Rufai and Ifeanyi Udenze all coached the team.

Team Nigeria Unified is led by coach Stephen Adeyemo.

In other sports at the Special Olympics World Summer Games, Sunday Olowoniyi and Victoria White won gold medals in table-tennis, Rasaq Muraina and Jeffrey Olu-Imaferami won gold in badminton while Emuwa Chidubem won gold in the 500 meters time.

Sikiru Sadiq threw a distance of 6.72 meters to win silver in the 4kg division shot put event, Tejumoluwa Ogunlela won silver in division 15 of the 100 metres.

Damola Roberts won gold in swimming 100m, while Teju Ogunlela and Adebiyi Olatunji  won silver in swimming in men and women category respectively.

The 2015 World Summer Games featured 6,500 athletes representing more than 160 countries, along with 30,000 volunteers and an anticipated 500,000 spectators.

The games took place in the same Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum where the 1932 and 1984 Olympics were held.

The one-week long event ended on Sunday, August 2.