Three time Commonwealth champion, Odunayo Adekuoroye has clinched a bronze medal in the women’s 57kg category at the just concluded 2023 World Wrestling Pre-Olympic Qualifiers in Belgrade, Serbia on Wednesday.
The former World no 1, Adekuoroye defeated Turkey’s Elvira Kamaloglu 9 to 5 points in the third-place match to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The 3x Olympian began her journey by beating Brazil’s Giullia Oliveira 10-7 in the last 16 before defeating Sarita Sarita (unattached) 6-4 in the last 8.
Adekuoroye lost to World no 17, Anastasia Nichita of Moldova 0-10 points in the quarterfinals. The US-based wrestler bounced back by beating Bulgaria’s Evelina Nikolova 14-7 in the Repechage afterwards, sealing her bronze medal against Elvira Kamaloglu in the third-place match.
President of Nigeria Wrestling Federation, Hon Daniel Igali told www.aclsports.com that the Federation was hoping to secure three slots at the Pre-Olympic Qualifiers.
The Olympic champion hailed Odunayo Adekuoroye for winning a bronze medal and qualifying for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Igali said the wrestlers will not disappoint at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games from his trajectory.
He said, “I am really elated and excited by the qualification of Odunayo Adekuoroye at the World Championships for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. She hasn’t really competed internationally since the Tokyo 2020 Olympics; it was good to see her come out and win a bronze medal and ultimately qualify for the Olympics.
“I want to congratulate Odunayo Adekuoroye; the athletes and their coaches for a fantastic job; everyone who came here won at least a match and that is what I want to see at the world level. I can certainly assure Nigerians that we will not only qualify a lot more athletes for the Olympics but from the trajectory I see, we will repeat as medalist at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“Sometimes results will go against you and that is what happened to a couple of them but on the whole, I am really happy with their performances. We are going back to Nigeria and continue from there”.
“The Nigeria Wrestling Federation is delighted and this is what we wanted. The Federation was hoping for three Olympic qualification slots in Serbia but it is not for lack of effort from the athletes; they all gave their best”.
The World champion said the Nigeria wrestlers will attend the 2024 African/Oceania Olympic qualifiers in Cairo to secure more slots.
He said, “The Nigeria Wrestling Federation will have another opportunity to participate in the 2024 African/Oceania Olympic qualifiers in Cairo where we hope to qualify lots more of our Olympic hopefuls.
“We want to use this opportunity to thank the Minister of Sports, Senator John Enoh; the Nigeria Olympic Committee, Bayelsa State Government, the Nigeria Customs Service and everyone whose little measures made it possible for our contingents to be at the World Championships to seek slots”.
Adekuoroye is the first Nigerian wrestlers to win four World Championship medals.
Odunayo Adekuoroye won her first World bronze medal at the 2015 World Championship in Las Vegas, silver medal at the 2017 World Championship in Paris and bronze medal at the 2019 World Championship in Nur-Sultan.
