Nigeria Wrestler: picks six more Rio 2016 Olympics slots

 NIGERIA has qualified six more wrestlers for the Rio 2016 Olympics holding later this year in Brazil at the just

concluded African/Oceania Olympic qualifiers in Algeria. Six out of 10 wrestlers presented by the Nigeria Wrestling Federation (NWF) have booked slots to participate at the 2016 Rio Olympics scheduled for 5th to 21st   August 2016. Four female wrestlers and two male freestyle wrestlers joined Odunayo Adekuoroye who had earlier qualified by winning a bronze medal in the 53kg weight class at the 2015 World Championships in Las Vegas on the road to Rio. This brings to a total of seven wrestlers made up of five females and two males, the highest number to ever qualify for the Games in the history of wrestling in Nigeria. Amas Daniel in the 65kg weight class and Soso Tamara in the 97kg were the latest qualifiers in the freestyle wrestling concluded yesterday while earlier in the same tournament, four female wrestlers booked their passage at the weekend which include Mercy Genesis (48kg),Aminat Adeniyi (58kg), Blessing Oborududu (63kg) and Hannah Reuben (69Kg). In the male freestyle category, Africa champion, Daniel Amas (65K) maintained his form by defeating Australian Sahit Prizreni and will be joined by Africa bronze medallist, Soso Tamara to hoist the Nigerian flag in the freestyle wrestling at the Games. All Africa Games champion, Mercy Genesis who did not win any medal at the 2016 Africa Championship went haywire as she won all her three bouts against Hanene Salaounandji of Algeria defeating her by 10-0; Cameroun’s Rebecca  Muambo 7-2 and Jessica Lavers-Mc Bain of Australia by 10-0. In the 58kg weight class, Aminat Adeniyi placed second after failing to beat Tunisia’s Marwa Amri by pin fall. Also seven-time African champion, Blessing Oborodudu was narrowly beaten 8-7 by another Tunisia wrestler, Hela Riabi After failing to participate at the 2016 Africa Championship, Hannah Reuben made up for her loss as she won a gold medal for team Nigeria defeating Egyptian, Enas Ahmed by 8-2. Other wrestlers who could not book their slots for the Games are; Female wrestler, Blessing Onyebuchi (75Kg), male freestyle, Welson Ebikewinimo (57Kg), Melvin Bibo (74Kg) and Emmanuel Nworie (Greco Roman 66Kg).   Reacting yesterday to their achievement, an elated President of the Nigeria Wrestling Federation, Dr Daniel Igali showered praises on the wrestlers for making him proud with the number of qualifiers as he equally thanked the Sports ministry for making it possible for them to be in Algiers, Algeria. “I’m so glad with wrestlers’ performance, we have never had it like this in the history of wrestling in Nigeria. We are going to work harder before the Games proper to ensure we cap our efforts by picking an Olympic medal in Rio”, he said.