Nigeria Wrestling Federation (NWF) president, Honourable Daniel Igali has commended the open nature of the recent 19th National Sports Festival in Abuja.
Sports247.ng reports that Igali is taking stock of the strides achieved by his federation at Abuja 2019, and believes some upset results recorded on the mats showed the emergence of new talents.
In contrast with some arguments that making the festival open stops new talents from gaining medals, Igali hinted that the National Youth Games is the right avenue for spotting future stars, not the festival.
Igal further hailed the decision by the sports minister, Barrister Solomon Dalung to make the recent edition of the festival open to all categories, as he believes that made the contests more competitive and varying.
The Olympics gold medalist-turned-politician and sports administrator added: “I was very impressed with the level of competition observed at the national sports festival.
“Quite a number of junior and cadet wrestlers placed at the senior national sports festival. The past sports festival, I think it was a good idea.
“As long as we have a junior festival to discover talent, an open festival opens up opportunities for stars to shine or be shown the way out.
“Having said that, we had upsets in wrestling at 61kg freestyle and a few weight classes in Greco Roman.
“For me, we should continue to bring back the glamour to the National Sports Festival. A closed festival does not have the same glamour as an open one.”
