Six wrestlers (five female and one male) will represent Nigeria at the 2019 Senior Wrestling World Championships, which are set to take place September 14-22 at the Barys Arena in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, Sportinglife.ng reports.
The wrestlers selected by the Nigeria Wrestling Federation (NWF) won gold for the country in their events at the just concluded 12th African Games, held in Rabat Morocco.
The wrestlers include two-time Commonwealth champion, Odunayo Adekuoroye (57kg), who won a silver medal at the 2017 edition of the World Championship held in Paris, France. Others are nine-time African champion and Commonwealth Games gold medalists, Blessing Oborududu (68kg); two-time Commonwealth champion, Aminat Adeniyi (62kg) , Blessing Onyebuchi (76kg), Mercy Genesis (50kg), while two-time African champion, John Emmanuel is the only male wrestler in the team.
Head coach of the female team of the NWF, Akuh Purity, who commended the female team for their performance at the African Games said the focus is the World championship.
“I specially want to thank Almighty God for a successful outing. I personally was expecting six gold medals from the six female wrestlers here. It is still six over six as we won five gold and a silver medal.
“If we had come with more wrestlers we would have won the same way we did at the African Championships in 2018 in Port Harcourt. We had our normal 10 weigh classes and won nine gold and a silver.
“Right now we are preparing for World Championship in Nuhu Sultan in Kazakhstan. The African Games is a good preparations to start up. So by next week, we would be having another camp in Yenegoa and from there we would move to Kazakhstan. Incidentally it is the six wrestlers that were picked for the world championship gave us gold medals at the African Games,” Purity told Sportinglife.ng.
The 2019 Wrestling World Championships will serve as the first qualification event for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
The top six finishers in each Olympic weight category in Nur-Sultan will secure an Olympic qualification for their nation.
The remaining qualification spots will be earned at continental competitions and a “Last Chance Qualifier” during the 2020 competition calendar.