Olympics
Four things you should know about Nigeria’s first wrestling medallist, Blessing Oborududu
From practising wrestling against her parents wishes, to her viral celebration at 2018 Commonwealth Games, here’s everything you should know about the African wrestling star and Tokyo finallist.
Blessing Oborududu began practicing wrestling as a young girl and got immersed in the sport.
But no one around her thought she was a wrestler. She ‘did not look like a wrestler’.
On Monday (2nd August), she cemented her name in Nigeria and African wrestling, as her country’s first-ever medallist in the Olympics.
Oborududu sailed into the final of the women’s 68kg freestyle wrestling after a dominant win over Mongolia’s Battsetseg Soronzonbold to gain revenge after losing to the same opponent in Rio, and is now set to clinch either gold or silver.
It has been a long journey to glory for the Nigerian wrestler, who planned to retire after Tokyo 2020.
She lost to Tamyra Mensah-Stock of the USA in the final.
1 – Oborududu is a10-time African champion
Oborududu announced herself to the wrestling world in 2007 when she was invited to join Nigeria’s team for the African Games. She was unrivalled in secondary school, where she started wrestling, and quickly caught the attention of the Bayelsa government, a Southern state in Nigeria, that invited her for the prestigious National Sports Festival.
Two years later, she cemented her position in the National Wrestling team and has maintained the spot, being a regular in continental tournaments.
“My first medal was a bronze in 2009,” she told Olympic Channel while competing at the 2019 African Games in Rabat.
“And then 2010, I started winning, then every other African championship I win gold, gold, gold…All African Games gold, gold, gold…”
She dominated 59kg, was unrivalled in the 63kg, before stepping up to her current 68kg, winning a record 10 African titles across the weights.
Oborududu has won all African titles apart from 2012 when she skipped the continental event for London 2012, the first of her three Olympic appearances.
2 – Fighting against the odds
As Oborududu made great strides in her career she met some opposition at home, while some people around her doubted her potential.
Her parents were against their daughter practicing the combat sport, regardless of Nigeria’s rich tradition of wrestling.
“When I was growing, my parents used to tell me wrestling is for boys and not for girls,” she recalled in an interview with Olympic Channel.
“But when I saw female wrestlers shining in the sport and traveling outside the country, I said I want to be traveling like them, I want to do this thing [wrestling].”
Even as she became a household name in Nigerian wrestling, it took some convincing to show her potential.
“A lot of people would see me and tell [me], ‘you are not a wrestler; you don’t look like one.’”
But her coaches encouraged her, and she also believed in her ability.
“I kept doing it for me and my coaches. They believed. Whenever I went to the Worlds, Olympics they always encouraged me that, ‘Blessing the best is yet to come. You just need to focus, because you are strong, you are young, you can make it’. This is what has kept me going for the past 10-12 years.”
3 – Her gold medal celebration went viral
At the 2018 Commonwealth Games, the 34-year-old finally won the gold that had eluded her in two previous attempts.
Oborududu held on for a slim 4-3 victory over her Canadian opponent Danielle Lappage.
She strode around the mat in a delirium of joy, rolling down, kissing the mat, and praying.
She then ran off to one of her coaches who carried her around the mat as they celebrated her biggest career win then.
That celebration went viral.
4 – Inspired by another Nigerian with an Olympic wrestling medal
Officially, Oborududu is the first Nigerian to win an Olympic medal in wrestling
But another Nigerian had in fact won gold at the Olympics, 21 years ago.
Daniel Igali, who also hails from Bayelsa state, won 69kg freestyle gold at Sydney 2000.
He won in it for Canada.
Igali switched nationality in 1998, and is the current president of Nigerian Wrestling Federation and is Oborududu’s idol.
In fact, Igali’s Olympic moment has been a huge source of inspiration for the former world number two.
“Nigerian wrestling is special because we always want to win, we want to be number one in the world, number two [at worst]. And our president Igali, is an Olympic champion. And when he told us about himself and how he won it, that is what every wrestler wishes for, be in the Olympics and to win,” she said.
“Sometimes when we watch the Olympic video of our president Daniel Igali, how he received his medal, how he was crying. You know everything that happened at the Olympics, that is our desire, we want to be like him. Everybody in the team wants to be Olympic champion.”
Athletes at the Milano Cortina Winter Games have raced through their free condom supply ahead of Valentine’s Day, leaving dispensers empty on Saturday, with more than a week of competition remaining.
According to a report by Reuters, organisers had distributed around 10,000 condoms across the city and mountain accommodation sites, continuing a long-standing Olympic tradition aimed at promoting safe relationships among competitors living in close quarters.
By Saturday, however, supplies had run out — adding Milan to a growing list of Olympic hosts where demand has comfortably exceeded expectations.
“Clearly, this shows Valentine’s Day is in full swing at the village,” International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams told a press conference. “Ten thousand have been used — 2,800 athletes — you can go figure, as they say.”
Adams added with a smile: “It is rule 62 of the Olympic Charter that we have to have a condoms story. Faster, higher, stronger, together.”
Milano Cortina organisers later acknowledged that stocks had been depleted due to “higher-than-anticipated demand,” but assured that additional supplies were already on the way.
“Additional supplies are being delivered and will be distributed across all Villages between today and Monday,” organisers said in a statement. “They will be continuously replenished until the end of the Games to ensure continued availability.”
The unexpected shortage also surprised some athletes.
Mexican figure skater Donovan Carrillo said he had only just heard about the situation. “I just saw that this morning. I was, like, shocked as everyone else,” he said.
Mialitiana Clerc, an alpine skier representing Madagascar, noted that boxes once placed at building entrances were quickly emptied.
“There were a lot of boxes at the entrance of every building where we were staying, and every day, everything had gone from the boxes,” Clerc said. “I already know that a lot of people are using condoms, or giving them to their friends outside of the Olympics, because it’s a kind of gift for them.”
While medals remain the official measure of achievement at the Games, the empty dispensers suggest that the social side of the Olympics is also proceeding at full pace.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday awarded a top state honour to an Olympic skeleton racer who was disqualified from the Winter Games for wearing a helmet commemorating athletes killed in the war with Russia.
Zelenskiy, speaking to Vladyslav Heraskevych on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference, said he had great respect for “all the Olympians who supported you and your position.”
“Medals are important for Ukraine and for you, but it seems to me that the most important thing is who you are,” Zelenskiy said while presenting the racer with the Order of Freedom.
Heraskevych told the president the award was “huge” and that the athletes depicted on the helmet “deserve it even more. Because of their sacrifice, we can compete in the Olympics.”
Heraskevych, 27, was disqualified at the Winter Games in Italy on Thursday when the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation jury ruled that the helmet’s depiction of athletes killed since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 breached rules on political neutrality.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed his appeal on Friday.
Heraskevych told reporters after the award ceremony that his disqualification was discriminatory as he had not violated the Olympic Charter, a document he said he “really valued.”
“But at the same time, I understand that this scandal has united people around the world about our problem and about the sacrifice of these great athletes, and I believe this goal is much more important than any medal,” he said.
Speaking before the CAS hearing earlier in the day, Heraskevych said his exclusion and rules imposed by the International Olympic Committee were “an instrument of propaganda for Russia. I still receive a lot of threats from the Russian side.”
-Reuters
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Ukraine’s skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified from the Milano Cortina Winter Games on Thursday over the use of a helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes killed in the war with Russia, the International Olympic Committee said.
He was informed of his disqualification after a meeting with IOC President Kirsty Coventry early in the morning at the sliding venue.
His team said they would appeal the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Coventry told reporters she had wanted to meet the athlete face to face in a last-ditch effort to break the impasse.
“I was not meant to be here but I thought it was really important to come here and talk to him face to face,” Coventry told reporters.
“No one, especially me, is disagreeing with the messaging, it’s a powerful message, it’s a message of remembrance, of memory.
“The challenge was to find a solution for the field of play. Sadly we’ve not been able to find that solution” she added, choking up.
“I really wanted to see him race, It’s been an emotional morning.”
The IOC offered him the opportunity to display his “helmet of remembrance” depicting 24 images of dead compatriots before the start and after the end of Thursday’s race at the Games, while also allowing him to wear a black armband while competing.
“I am disqualified from the race. I will not get my Olympic moment,” said Heraskevych.
The skeleton competition starts later on Thursday.
-Reuters
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