South African athletes for the ninth All Africa Games returned home on Wednesday in happy mood after securing the third place with 180 medals.
Moss Mashishi , president of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC), said he was pleased with Team South Africa's performance at the Games which took place in Algeria earlier this month.
Team South Africa came third in the event with 180 medals of which 61 were gold. Algeria won 205 medals but had to settle for second place as Egypt had four more gold medals than the hosts. Egypt collected 199 medals of which 74 were gold.
"We have matched our performances from the 2003 games and we are happy with that," Mashishi was quoted as saying by the SAPA news agency.
"Obviously we wanted to better our performance since the last games but we cannot complain about the athletes' achievements," he said.
A total of 66 silver and 53 bronze medals were captured by the 400 or so sports men and women of Team South Africa that competed in Algiers from July 11 to July 23.
Hajera Kajee, the team's head of delegation, said the host were very impressed by South African swimmers who grabbed 25 of 40 gold medals, though the country's world-class swimmers such as Ryk Neethling and Roland Schoeman did not participate.
The next All Africa Games will take place in Zambia in 2011.
Source: Xinhua
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