African champion Blessing Onyebuchi (+70kg) capped a memorable outing for Nigeria at the inaugural ANOC World Beach Games in Doha, Qatar with a gold medal in beach wrestling.

On the last day of competition in the sport, Onyebuchi overpowered Ecuador’s Rosangela Reasco Valdez 3-0 in a one-sided final in the over 70kg category to land a historic gold for Nigeria at the famous Katara beach.

The Edo State-born wrestler had earlier defeated Iryna Pasichnyk of Ukraine 3-2 in the semi-finals to book a place in the gold medal bout. She also demolished Aysegul Ozbege of Turkey 4-0 and outclassed Brazilian Aline Ferraira 3-0 in the previous rounds.

Earlier on Monday, Nigeria’s other representative at the competition Mercy Genesis narrowly lost 3-2 to Brazilian Kamila Barbosa Vito Da Silva to settle for silver in the 50kg class. Multiple African champion Genesis had already defeated Da Silva 4-2 in the group stage, but fell short in the final.

Their performance in Doha is a testament of Nigeria’s growing prowess in wrestling globally.

Emeka Dennar