Rafiu Ladipo Armwrestling Championships to hold March 26 in Lagos

The Nigeria Armwrestling Federation (NAWF) on Sunday said that plans had been concluded to host the maiden Rafiu Ladipo Armwrestling Championship.

NAWF President Olatunji Jackson told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the Championship were slated to hold at the National Stadium in Lagos on March 26.

Jackson said that 16 weight categories would be competed for at the one-day championship.

We have what it takes to engage 200 participants at the competition; the manpower and kits are available for these numbers,’’ he said.

Jackson said that the championships would be used as a selection process for armwrestlers to represent the country at the forthcoming African Armwrestling Championships holding in Cairo, Egypt, from April 26 to April 29.

We are also using the championships to strengthen the national team as well as select representatives to the forthcoming tournament in Egypt,’’ he said.

He said that the federation intended to engage its armwrestlers in all the competitions in the calendar for the year.

This is one of the programmes we have for 2016. We have nine competitions that we will love our armwrestlers to participate in.

“These tournaments comprise national and international competitions.

We have the Dr Rafiu Ladipo National Armwrestling Championships, Lagos Open World Armwrestling Championships, African Armwrestling Championships in Egypt.

We also have Amsterdam Festival Armwrestling, World Eliminating Armwrestling Championships, Gulley Armwrestling, U.S., 36th World Armwrestling Championships in Hungary and the Owerri Community Open Championships.

We are making extra-efforts to surpass all the programmes we had in 2015,’’Jackson said.

He said that because the federation was new, the board members were saddled with the responsibility of making the sport popular.

It is a new sport in the country which is barely over a year. It has yet to gain a wide acceptance.

Many persons have yet to know about the sport. Almost every day I have to display to people how the sport is practiced,” he said.

Jackson, however, appealed to well-meaning Nigerians to partner the armwrestling federation to put it in spotlight.

Our plan is to make armwrestling a medal winning sport for Nigeria. We want our armwrestlers to be world beaters,” he said. (NAN)