Adekuoroye ripe for Olympic gold, says coach Purity

By Akeem Lawal

Female coach, Nigeria Wrestling Federation (NWF), Akuh Purity believes World Wrestling Championship silver medalist, Odunayo Adekuoroye (57kg) has gathered enough experience to win gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan.

Adekuoroye, a two-time Commonwealth champion, claimed her 5th African title as Nigeria a total of 13 medals (6 gold, 2 silver and 5 bronze) at the just concluded African Wrestling Championship held in Tunisia.

Purity noted that the 25 year old, who had earlier won gold at the Grand Prix of Germany in Dormagen and bronze at the Dan Kolov-Nikola Petrov ranking series tournament in Ruse, Bulgaria must be supported by the country in order to achieve her dream.

“Odunayo is determined to be at the top and that really helps her. So we are very glad and happy because it was a very huge success for us especially for the Nigeria Wrestling Federation, winning the title back is a joy. Without even dropping a point for anyone was fantastic. She is quite obedient and listens to instruction. In the final, I told her that the Cameroonian (Esoombe Tiako) is going to come after her and that she should just keep calm, after the attack, she should counter attack and that was exactly what she did and she defeated her opponent within 29 seconds.

“I can assure you Odunayo has gotten enough experience. Within the first quarter of the year, she won the Grand Prix of Germany, won bronze in Dan Kolov-Nikola Petrov and now the best wrestler in African Championship.

“We will be having our Olympic qualifier in September and I can assure you she is going to qualify for the World Championships and we are doing everything to put her in shape to qualify for the championship. She is matured enough now, she knows and we too will keep eye on her, trying to see that she does better and encourage her. We still want the government and good citizen of Nigeria to really encourage her too,” Purity said.

While commending all the wrestlers for their performance in Tunisia, Purity said, “The athletes performed brilliantly we started the preparation early, we started immediately after the National Sports Festival and I can assure you both the male and female team listened to instructions. We told them to give their 100 percent and that was exactly what they did. So I am very happy.”