Igali delighted with wrestlers' performance at World Championship

By Akeem Lawal

PRESIDENT of the Nigeria Wrestling Federation, Hon. Daniel Igali has hailed the performance of the country's wrestlers to the just concluded World Wrestling Championship in Paris, France.

Igali made the commendation in a chat with sportsbiz247.blogspot.com on the team's return to the country at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport aboard Ethiopian Airline on Monday.

Team Nigeria wrestlers won an unprecedented silver medal courtesy of Odunayo Adekuoroye, while seven-time African champion, Blessing Oborududu also wrestled for bronze medal but lost in controversial circumstances 7-8, placing 5th.

Adekuoroye who became the first ever female Nigerian wrestler to get to the final of the world championship but lost to Japan’s Haruna Okuno in the 55kg. Other wrestlers who had a good outing but failed in their medal quest include Amas Daniel (65kg), John Emmanuel (70kg), Blessing Oborududu (63kg) Mercy Genesis (48kg) and Aminat Adeniyi 58kg.

The NWF boss also called on state governors to emulate Bayelsa State Governor, Serieke Dickson who funded Nigeria’s participation to the competition.

“I’m extremely happy with the performances of our athletes, this is unprecedented. This is the first time we would ever gone to a world championship and qualify for final. Not only in final but had two athletes wrestled for medal in one night. Blessing Oborududu wrestled her hearth out. In my mind, she won a broze medal but just was robbed. Adekuoroye was dominant up till the final. She is the darling of wrestling fans all over the world and I’m so excited that we went to a tournament and came back with one 8th place finish, one 6th six place finish and a 2nd place finish at the world championship. We can only do better from here.

“Funding is the major issue we have in Nigeria sports. If it wasn’t for the Governor of Bayelsa State, Hon. Serieke Dickson, we wouldn't have been able to make it to this tournament as you know. I want other governors to emulate the governor. They should not see wrestling as a federal government property.

“We have loads of championships lined up from now till next year. We have governor Wike Wrestling Championship in December, we are hosting the African Championships next year from February 7th to 11th in Port Harcourt and we also have the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast Australia in April and the commonwealth championship in Johannesburg, South Africa in December. So we are choked up from now until the middle of next year. 

"What we need to do consistently for these girls to get better, especially for those that we attend the 2020 Olympics is to consistently attend the world championships from this year to 2020. Once they get that confidence, we will consistently win medals at the world championships leading to 2020. We would be almost rest assured that we would win medal in 2020 at the Olympics,” Igali told Sportsbiz247.blogspot.com.