2017 World wrestling Silver medallist Odunayo Adekuoroye together with 2014 Commonwealth champion Aminat Adeniyi and Team Nigeria coach Purity Akuh are expected to arrive Budapest today aboard a Turkish Airline flight. They will be joining eight-time African champion Blessing Oborududu and Blessing Onyebuchi – a 2018 Commonwealth silver medallist, who arrived Hungary on Sunday morning ahead of their participation at the ongoing 2018 Senior World Wrestling Championships.
The all-female quartet of Adekuoroye, Adeniyi, Oborududu and Onyebuchi will be hoping to make history for Nigeria when they begin competition on Tuesday.
Adekuoroye will be competing in the 57kg category and will hope to go one better than last year when she could only win silver at the 2017 World Wrestling Championships in Paris. That feat saw her share the United World Wrestling’s History Maker award with Marwa Amri of Tunisia after they became the first African women to make a world final. Nicknamed ‘The Dancing Queen’, Adekuoroye faces a formidable field that includes Pooja Dhanda of India and 2016 Olympic champion and 2-time World champion Helen Maroulis of the USA. Both women have beaten Adekuoroye recently – Dhanda in last year’s Indian Pro League and Maroulis in the Beat the Streets wrestling tournament earlier in the year. Other notable names in the field include 2018 Asian champion Rong Ningning of China and Bulgaria’s Bilyana Dudova, the 2018 European champion. She begins her quest on Thursday.
2014 Glasgow Commonwealth games gold medallist Aminat Adeniyi takes to the mat on Thursday and would be looking to make her mark in the 62kg field that has been made lighter by the absence of reigning World champion Purevdorj Orkhon of Mongolia. She faces competition for a podium place from the likes of 2014 World champion and 3-time World medallist Yulia Tkatch Ostapchuk of Ukraine and Taybe Yusein of Bulgaria the 2018 European champion and a 4-time World medallist.
Eight-time African champion Blessing Oborududu begins her competition tomorrow in the 68kg category and could claim a maiden podium finish if things go her way. The 2018 Commonwealth gold medallist narrowly missed out on a bronze medal at the 2017 event when she lost 7-8 to Colombian Jackeline Castillo in a third-place bout and should fancy her chances in a field that boasts just one athlete to have won a World championships gold medal – Soronzonbold Battsetseg of Mongolia. She’d have to keep an eye on Frenchwoman Koumba Larrouque, the 2017 world championships bronze medallist is something of a prodigy having won the U23 world title, 2 junior world gold medals and a cadet world championship.
Blessing Onyebuchi features in the 76kg category and would need a miracle to finish on the podium in a field that features the reigning World Champion, the 2016 Olympic gold medallist, a 3-time World champion and two other World Championships silver medallists. The heavy weight class features some real heavy weights and should be the most keenly contested category in the women’s event at the World Wrestling Championships.
The 2018 Senior World Wrestling Championships which started on 20th October will come to an end on 28th October.
