NIGERIAN wrestler Blessing Oborududu has won the first silver medal for Nigeria in the ongoing Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Earlier, long jumper Ese Brume won the first bronze for Nigeria.
Oborududu lost 4-1 to her opponent USA’s Tamyra Mensah-Stock in the final of the women’s freestyle 68kg on Tuesday, 3rd August 2021.
Oborududu is the first Nigerian wrestler ever to win a silver medal at the Games.
According to PunchNG, Blessing Oborududu, who is also the first-ever Nigerian to win an Olympics medal in wrestling, qualified for the final after defeating Mongolia’s Soronzonboldyn Battsetseg 7-2 in the semi-finals.She had earlier defeated Kyrgyzstan’s Meerim Zhumanazarova 3-2 in the quarter-finals, after seeing off Azerbaijan’s Elis Manolova in the Round of 16.
Former Olympic and Commonwealth freestyle wrestling champion, and current president of the Nigerian Wrestling Federation, Daniel Igali, was the only other Nigerian to have won an Olympic medal in wrestling before Oborududu’s feat, but Igali did it in the colours of Canada, wining gold at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.
