Second African Youth Games - Young heroes return |03 June 2014

Young athletes who represented Seychelles at the second African Youth Games in Gaborone, Botswana, returned to a heroes’ welcome at the Seychelles International Airport on Sunday evening.

Upon their arrival, they were greeted by Social Affairs, Community Development and Sports Minister Vincent Meriton, community development and sports principal secretary Denis Rose and Seychelles Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (Socga) president Antonio Gopal.

The medallists were presented with a bouquet of flowers and all the athletes took a souvenir photo with the welcoming party.

The athletes came back with five medals – two gold and three bronze – as well as qualifications for other key international tournaments.

The gold medal winners were boxer Kevin Kilindo and judoka Nantenaina Finesse.

Kilindo fought a Nigerian in his final bout which he won on a 3-0 score to win the gold medal. He had qualified directly for the final.

“For me the final was quite tight, but I was full of confidence and therefore managed to win the gold medal for Seychelles,” said Kilindo.

Judoka Nantenaina Finesse managed victory against an opponent from host nation Botswana in the semifinal and faced a Malian in the final of his weight class. He was awarded the gold medal after his opponent failed to turn up for the final.

Nantenaina said: “The fight was not too difficult and to win a gold medal at this level is a great achievement which I am very happy with.”

Swimmer Felicity Passon set two new national records, qualified for the Youth Olympic Games and won two bronze in Gaborone.

Felicity was pleased with her achievement, saying that now she was happy to have qualified as now the pressure is off and she only has to concentrate on her training to bring back good results from the Youth Olympic Games.

Passon won her first bronze medal in the 50m butterfly event after managing a time of 29.14 seconds to erase the previous record of 29.86 set by herself at the South Africa Level 3 National age group Championship, held in Cape Town, in March earlier this year.

Her second bronze medal came in the 50m freestyle event, clocking a time of 27.37 seconds to set another new Seychelles national record, a time that qualified her for the forthcoming Youth Olympic Games to be held from August 16-28, 2014 in Nanjing, China.

Track and field athlete Ned Azemia picked up Seychelles’ third bronze medal in the 400-metre hurdles event with a time of 53.27 seconds.

Azemia’s time allowed him to qualify for the World Youth Athletics Championships to be held in the USA, but he did not qualify for the Youth Olympic Games however as only the first two finishers were picked.

“I was not expecting to win the bronze medal but I gave it my best and I am very happy,” he said.

With its medal haul, Seychelles has finished in 15th place on the medals table out of 42 nations who managed to win medals.

Altogether, 54 countries sent athletes to these Games.

Egypt topped the standings with 89 medals – 44 gold, 16 silver and 29 bronze – followed by South Africa with 93 – 41 gold, 25 silver and 27 bronze.

Hosts Botswana could only take eighth place with 31 medals – 6 gold, 6 silver and 19 bronze.

The following is the final medals table.