The president of Nigerian Wrestling Federation (NWF), Honourable Daniel Igali has rated the country high for the year 2019, as he pointed out that the nation’s grapplers have excelled both collectively and individually in the outgoing season, megasportsarena.com reports.
Igali, who is also commissioner for sports in Bayelsa State, cited the surges of the country’s top two female wrestlers into high brackets in the global rankings, as Blessing Oborududu (68kg) is number four in the world and Odunayo Adekuoroye Odunayo (57kg) now rated second overall.
While also pointing to the NWF’s achievements in organizing domestic competitions and taking the wrestlers for international contests, Igali stated further during Mega Sports on Star 101.5 FM, Lagos that the performances, results and medals enacted by the female wrestlers give him the confidence to declare that his grapplers’ governing body has great achievements to flaunt.
Although nothing of note was won by the male wrestlers during the year in review, Igali, who once won a gold medal for Canada while competing under the Maple Leaf flag at the Olympics, stressed that Nigerians have every reason to be proud of the NWF for its giant strides overall.
Igali expatiated: “We have two athletes ranked in the top 4 in the world. Blessing Oborududu (68kg) is No. 4 and Adekuoroye Odunayo (57kg) is No. 2 in the world. I doubt if there is any other sport, outside of Paralympic sports, that has two athletes ranked in the top 4 in the world.
“Those are just the competitions that have come off the top of my head. If we are to look at the Grand Prix tournaments we had in Germany and Bulgaria, where we had our athletes win international medals, that goes to tell me that we had a very good season.
“I think till date, the performances of the Nigerian wrestling team this year were probably the most outstanding of the past seven, eight years. Starting from the African Championships (in Tunisia) where, again, our women became overall African champions for the 7th time in a row.
“Then, looking at the 12th Africa Games (in Morocco), where we again dominated not only as a female team, but as the overall best team in Africa in female wrestling, male wrestling and Greco Roman by coming home with 7 gold medals.
“Then to the World Championships (in Kazakhstan), where we qualified Adekuoroye for the Olympics by winning a historic bronze medal. She’s the measuring rod in Nigeria Wrestling Federation, winning three medals within four years at the World Championships. That is outstanding, and you can’t really take anything away from her.
“Blessing Oborududu at the same competition was just one placing away from qualifying for the Olympics. She placed 7th instead of 6th. And Mercy Genesis (50kg) won a silver medal at the World Beach Games (in Doha), while Blessing Onyebuchi (+70kg) became our world champion in Beach wrestling by winning a gold medal.”
