Nigeria returned to another round of disappointments at the Olympic Games on Wednesday, following the shock elimination of Odunayo Adekuoroye in the women’s wrestling event, megasportsarena.com reports.
Adekuoroye failed to maintain the momentum that had been ignited the previous day, when another female wrestler, Blessing Oborududu won silver and Ese Brume got bronze in the women’s long jump.
Sadly, against all expectations, Adekuroye crashed out in the second round of the wrestling event of Tokyo 2020 after losing to Anastasia Nichita of Mongolia.
Adekuroye was leading her opponent 8-2 but was defeated by fall in their round of 16 clash, but the Nigerian star have an opportunity to vie for a bronze medal through the repechage, if Nichita reaches the final.
There was also disappointment for Nigeria in the men’s freestyle wrestling 86kg quarter finals, as the country’s only male wrestler to the Games in Tokyo, Ekerekeme Agiomor lost 1-12 to Deepak Punia of India.
Same occurred in the canoeing event, where Ayomide Bello placed third and failed to reach the semi finals of the women’s singles 200m, despite finishing with a faster time of 47.326s in the quarter final.
All these came after Adekuoroye lost her 57kg weight category fight in a swift turn of events, as she was leading 8-2 before Nichita won through a pin.
A pin occurs when a competitor is pressed back down on the canvas, with any part of both shoulders or both shoulder blades in contact with the mat for two seconds.
When that happens, the match is declared over and the competitor on top at that point emerges as the winner.
The second seed three-time World Championship medallist will now pray for Nichita to reach the final, so she could vie for a bronze medal through the repechage.
