The president of Nigeria Wrestling Federation (NWF), Daniel Igali says efforts are being made to qualify more Nigerian wrestlers for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
Igali made this known in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan.
According to Igali, plans are ongoing for more wrestlers to compete in the last Olympic qualifiers in May. “As a federation, we’re very excited and pleased that six of our athletes have been able to qualify for the Olympics.
”Unfortunately, Mercy Genesis, who we felt was a medal prospect in Paris, lost out in qualifications.
“We are looking at sending her to the last world qualifiers in Istanbul coming up in May. We are keeping our fingers crossed that we may even have more than six, maybe seven,” he said.
He added that the federation planned to ensure that athletes participated in two world level competitions between May and June.
“Before mid-April, we would have commenced our full camp for the Olympics, and we are not going to wait for the Federal Ministry Sports Development.
“Our timeline is set; we want to give all the needed opportunities for our athletes to qualify.
“In both tournaments that they would be attending, we want to give them an opportunity to camp for a week or two before they return back to Nigeria,” he said.
Igali added that funding had been not just their challenge but ”the big elephant in the room”.
“It’s not just peculiar to wrestling but to all federations or almost all federations.
“We’ve been working very closely with the Ministry of Youth and Sports, and the board members have been very supportive, most especially the Comptroller General of Customs Wale Adeniyi.
“We are going to keep a close relationship with the Governor of Bayelsa state who has always been supportive and without him and a few others we would have probably gone to the Olympic qualifiers with only three athletes in Alexandra.
“We would be keeping taps on those who have been very supportive,” he said.
Igali, however, hinted that a foreign coach might be engaged for the wrestlers.
“We might even look at getting a foreign coach, Russian, Cuban, or American. Due to happenings in Russia we might differ on that.
“This is to get another eye to work with our coaches who are very competent to give our athletes every chance to correct whatever mistakes that we’ve observed in the last couple of tournaments.
“We will give as much opportunity as possible to our athletes to go out and be as successful as they can at the Olympics,” Igali said.
