The Nigeria ArmWrestling Federation (NAWF) on Wednesday said that seven armwrestlers will represent the country at the forthcoming 40th World Armwrestling Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
The President of NAWF, Olatunji Jackson, reportedly said that four officials will accompany the armwrestlers.
NAN reports that the championships will commence on Sept. 2 and end on Sept. 11.
The athletes comprise six male and one female. The only female is Ijeoma Soribe who will feature in the 70kg, while the males are Olusegun Orobiyi who fight in the 65kg category.
Others are Femi Akinsanya (80kg), Olatunji Jackson (100kg), Gabriel Nmezu (70kg), Sunday Chawai (70kg) and Ralph Ubah (80kg).
Jackson said that the athletes were carefully selected from the last 8th African Armwrestling Championships which Nigeria hosted in Lagos in June.
“Each person representing us in each weight category is the best in it. They are not new in the game.
“They are professionals who are very good in their trade. They are gifted and skilled and what it takes to dominate at the championships.
“I have no doubt in their skills and I’m very confidence that we have a formidable team,’’ he said.
Jackson, who is also the 2nd Vice-President, Armwrestling Federation of Africa (AFA), said the paucity of funds forced them to indulge in open camp towards the competition.
“We are having open camps because we do not have much funds and it’s very important that we attend. The little funds we have are being used to sort our participation.
“We are going to use the competition to further be exposed to what international tournaments entail and widen our knowledge of the game,’’ he told NAN.
“In this team, we have four of them that are African champions in their categories.
“We were at the 2015 edition in Kuala Lumpur and also at the 2016 edition in Bulgaria. Our participation is indeed yielding positive results.
“Our ranking improved from 22nd in 2015 to 13th in 2016. Right now in Africa we are ranked number one,’’ he said.
Jackson added that attending international competitions is the reason why the athletes have kept getting better.
“ I just wish we have the adequate funding to allow these athletes attend as many tournaments as possible,’’ he said.
