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Senegal Wins ECOWAS Wrestling Championship

Jul 7, 2008, 9:08 AM | Article By: By Pa Modou Faal

The 2nd edition of The ECOWAS Wrestling championship ended last Saturday at the Stade Iba Mar Diop,with the host Senegal emerging champions after defeating Niger 4-1 in the finals.

The event, which featured eleven countries from the sub-region.

Niger came out second position whilst third place and fourth places went to Nigeria and Guinea Bissau respectively

The Senegalese wrestling  team went home richer with goal medals, 2.5 million CFA and a trophy .

The Silver and Bronze medallists, Niger and Nigeria received a trophy and cash prizes of 1.5million and  750,000 CFA respectively.

In the individual categories, Senegal were also the dominant side, followed by Nigeria, Niger, Burkina-Faso and Ivory -coast

The Gambian team and the rest of the participating countries were eliminated earlier on Friday from the competition

Speaking in an interview with Pointsports shortly after the end of the championship, Matarr Jarjue, president of The Gambia wrestling Association, explained that this is the first participation of most of the Gambian wrestlers and their performance in both the first and second rounds were very impressive.

He maintained that they have learnt a lot about the competition and would adjust to the free style wresting

He added that his association is planing to organise a nationwide wrestling competition in order to bring wrestlers together and also to identify coaches for them, to improve the standard of the game

For his part, Mr Alieu Sarr, President of the Senegalese Wrestling Federation revealed that his federation has agreed with their Gambian  counterparts to be providing them bothtechnical and refereeing assistance from time to time.

Mr Sarr also revealed that the wrestlers of the two countries would have some exchanges in the near future to share experiences.