Nigeria Wrestling Federation (NWF) president, Honorable Daniel Igali has revealed that he is eagerly awaiting the end of the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic, in order to come out with a new national calendar that will fall in sync with the international programme for the sport, megasportsarena.com reports.
The former wrestler-turned-administrator, who won an Olympic Games gold medal during his days of representing Canada, added that he and other members of the NWF are staying hopeful of meeting with all their expectations for the year, once a revised programme of activities is announced by United World Wrestling Federation in May or June.
He is enthusiastic that the NWF will be able to meet up, while all wrestlers, coaches and officials will also fall in line, after the coronavirus pandemic abates, as the ongoing effects it has caused have so much disrupted both national and international wrestling calendars.
The NWF boss stressed that the global COVID-19 scourge has led to suspensions or cancellations of sporting events across the world, but Igali believes wrestling activities could return in October at the earliest.
He concluded by revealing that all of the country’s national team wrestlers have been advised to train outside the mats to avoid physical contacts and exhorted them to ensure they maintain all social distancing and stay at home instructions, but still engage in various type of indoor physical activities to maintain their levels of fitness.
“Our activities have been curtailed by the coronavirus (pandemic), but we’ve told athletes to stay active. Staying active does not mean that we have to be on the mat. We’ve tried avoiding physical one-on-one contacts. All the coaches around the country have been briefed that, until further notice, we don’t train on the mats, but we are able to train outside the mats.
“The Olympic Qualifiers were affected, some ranking tournaments have been affected, and from every indication, we don’t think any competition will take place before October from the feelers I have. So, we will also tailor our activities to that of the international federation.
“Hopefully, by May/June we should be able to come out with the plan of activities yet again, as disrupted by COVID-19 and to have it dovetail with what the international federation will be doing. So, we would have our training, our competitions and our camps all in sync with the new guidelines that will come out from the international federation.
“So, we are doing physical conditioning, exercises, they are running, they are swimming, they are doing weight training and staying away from the mats. But from the way things are going, I think not too long we would be able to get back to full activity,” Igali posited.
