Nigerian women rule Africa in wrestling

With four gold medals, Nigerian female wrestlers dwarfed all opposition from the rest of Africa to top the female category of the Africa Wrestling Championship which ended in South Africa on Monday.

The quartet of Lovina Odohi, Sammie Ozeti, Maria Musa and Hapiness Burutu picked the four gold which saw Nigeria finishing powerfully in the continental showpiece. Seven women and four men flew the country’s banner at the one week event. Nigeria finished with four gold, four silver and a bronze in the final medals table.

Though the feat triggered off ecstatic celebrations in Lagos on Tuesday when the team returned with their laurels (medals and a trophy) secretary general of the Nigeria Wrestling Federation, NWF, Mr. Yemi Usikaye said the best result was yet to come.

‘It is heart-warming that Nigeria performed impressively at the African championships. With this result, we are looking forward to greater feats in the sport. Usikaye said the performance of the team painted a bright future for the sport. ‘Without any doubt in my mind, the future is very bright for Nigeria in wrestling’

The secretary spoke of his federations target ‘We have our targets and they include entrenching Nigeria as a power house in Africa and earning a respectable place in the All Africa Games in 2007and the Olympics in 2008’.To achieve this aim the secretary revealed ‘The federation has set a programme in motion which will keep our wrestlers very busy.

The wrestlers will attend championships in Scotland in July and China in September and a host of local events to give them the required exposure, experience and confidence to make them face any challenge at any level’. Usikaye boasted that the sky was the limit for Nigerian wrestling if the sport received enough funding.

He then appealed to philanthropists and corporate bodies to invest in wrestling because of the multi medal potentials of the sport adding that government alone can’t fund sports.

‘With so many sectors like education, health, struggling for the limited funds at government’s disposal, it is obvious that corporate bodies and philanthropists should assist government in funding sports especially wrestling’.

He said Nigeria was richly blessed with wrestling talents and pointed out that these talents can only become world beaters if exposed to several competitions both at home and abroad Usikaye cited the case of Nigerian born Daniel Igali who is now a Canadian.

‘He is a Nigerian wrestling talent who got enough competitions when he moved over to Canada and became an Olympic champion’.