The president of Nigeria Wrestling Federation (NWF), Honourable Daniel Igali is picking the pros and cons of the country’s latest international outing, and says the lesson learnt is that the team must prepare better to get an improved show next time out.
Though sports247.ng reports that Igali refused to scold the wrestlers for failing to win medals at the recent 2018 Senior World Wrestling Championships in Budapest, Hungary, he admitted it was a rather disappointing outing, but mostly due to lack of adequate funding.
Odunayo Adekuoroye, who won silver at last year’s championship, as well as Commonwealth gold medalists, Blessing Oborududu (68kg) and Aminat Adeniyi (63kg) plus Blessing Onyebuchi (76kg) all slipped.
Though the team failed to repeat their 2017 performance in Paris, Igali blamed the results on the poor preparation of the team and stressed that they need more support to win medals for the country.
“The outcome was disappointing but, when you look at the effort everybody put into it, and the draws as well as the circumstances that led to our not coming back with any medal, I am not disappointed.
“In terms of effort everybody puts into it, they did what they could do; they are right there.
“Last year, Russia that has a budget of about $18m per year for their wrestling team could not win a single medal in the freestyle events, but this year, they won three gold medals.
“If they had been able to compete a bit more, they would have done better.
“For instance, Odunayo wouldn’t have lost if she had the support to prepare better than she did.
“What we need to do is to prepare to our optimum. Next time, we are not going to look at draws anymore because if we are going to win tournaments, we have to beat everybody,” Igali concluded.
