The Nigerian female wrestler, Odunayo Adekuoroye has booked herself a seat on the next flight to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The 2014 Commonwealth Games 53kg women’s freestyle gold medalist defeated World No. 12 Elvira Kamaloglu of Turkey 9-5 points in the 57kg category in Wednesday’s bronze medal match.
The world No. 22 will now have to gear up to test her strength against other global contenders at next year’s Mundial games after winning bronze at the 2023 World Wrestling Championships in Belgrade, Serbia.
The 29-year-old becomes the first Nigerian wrestler to pick a ticket to the games and has now qualified for her third consecutive Olympic Games after appearing at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.
Meanwhile, Blessing Oborududu, a silver medalist at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, lost to Russia’s Vusala Parfianovich in the women’s 68kg quarter-finals. Relatively her Nigerian counterpart, Esther Kolawole was also defeated by the World No. 8 Grace Bullen of Norway in the quarter-finals of the women’s 62kg event.
Both Oborududu and Kolawole, however, will have a chance to qualify for the 2024 Summer Olympics later today at the fates of their conquerors’ progression to the final of their respective events.