At the beginning of the ongoing Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Nigerians banked on the relay teams, Tobi Amusan, Ese Brume, the wrestlers, especially Blessing Oborodudu and Odunayo Adekuoroye and Cynthia Ogunsemilore for medal. In fact, some Nigerians, including Sports Minister, John Owan Enoh, believed that Team Nigeria’s performance would be so good that it would rival the country’s achievement at the 1996 Games, where the medal haul was two gold medals and many silver and bronze medals. But with three days to the end of competition, the Nigerian representatives have been crumbling so fast that talk of the country mounting the podium is now muted.
On Wednesday, Nigerians watched with disbelief as Oborodudu, a bronze medallist at the Tokyo 2020 edition of the Games, lost her women’s 68 kg freestyle wrestling bronze medal fight to Japan’s Nonoka Ozaki. It later emerged that the African champion was injured, but she insisted on going into the bout. Yesterday, world number three, Adekuoroye lost 8-10 to China’s Hong Kexin in the women’s freestyle 57-kilogramme event to exit the competition empty-handed.
In the quarter-final match at the Champ-de-Mars Arena in Paris, both wrestlers were even by the end of the bout’s first period despite the Nigerian’s early lead. But Hong pulled away in the second period, scoring technical points freely as she headed into the semi-finals. Adekuoroye had earlier in the day beaten Algeria’s Chaimaa Aouissi, in the first round.
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