After a narrow loss to current World champion, China’s Ningning Rong in the semifinal of the women’s 57kg, Nigeria’s Odunayo Adekuoroye ensured she climbed the podium after settling for bronze medal at the United World Wrestling (UWW) tagged Dan Kolov ranking series held in Bulgaria.
From her superb performance at last week’s Germany grand prix where she recorded an emphatic 10-0 in all our fights, Adekuoroye also showed her class against some of the world’s best in Bulgaria.
From the first fight against Kazakhstan’s Emma Tissina, she put the bout beyond her opponent with a 10-0 win.
The round of 16 fight against Hungary’s Emese Barka proved to be the biggest test for the Commonwealth Games gold medalist as she had a tight 11-9 win over the European.
Just like it happened in the round of 16 tie, Adekuoroye was again tasked by her opponent – Ukraine’s Tetyana Kit in the quarterfinal but the Nigerian again showed her superiority with a 9-4 win.
However, the semifinal clash against the world champion became the undoing of Adekuoroye in the competition that despite leading 4-0, a technical error from the Nigerian cost her 6-4 loss to the Chinese who celebrated the win to the high heaven knowing fully what the victory meant to her against the highly-rated Nigerian champion.
And to ensure that she did not leave Bulgaria empty-handed, Adekuoroye was merciless in the bronze medal fight against Sweden’s Sara Johanna Lindborg with a 10-0 win to mount the podium at the United World Wrestling (UWW) ranking series event concluded yesterday in Bulgaria.
Adekuoroye’s compatriots – Aminat Adeniyi and Blessing Obrududu were however, unlucky after they missed out from making the podium despite starting well in their weight categories.
Apart from Oborududu who failed to make it to the medal fight, Adeniyi worked her way to the medal tie but she lost to her opponent in the bronze medal clash to miss the podium in the 62kg.
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For coach Purity Akuh, competing in the competition has again showed the lapses of the athletes, while hoping that these would be corrected before the African Championship holding this month in Tunis, Tunisia.