As the National Youth Games draws near, Kogi state wrestling contingent on Thursday departed the state for an interstate friendly wrestling in Anambra without the state government support.
The Kogi wrestlers were conveyed to Awka, the Anambra state capital by the coach of Kano state wrestling association, Ado Ibrahim when they passed the night over in Lokoja.
The competition is scheduled for Friday (19th) and Saturday (20th).
The state will be represented by five wrestlers and two Coaches.
They consists of four male namely;
Friday Godwin (54Kg), Sunday Musa (56Kg), Peter Jonah (54Kg) and Yakubu Saliu (63Kg) as well as a female Wrestler, Aina Ileigo (54Kg).
The wrestling team have been preparing for the games since June 2016
It was gathered that proposals were submitted to the ministry of Youth and Sports but as at the time of filing this report funds have not been released to the team.
According to the spokesman of the ministry, proposal was sent by the association to the ministry but could not access funds before their departure.
It seems all attention is focused on the upcoming National Judiciary games scheduled to hold later in the month.
This is not the first time that promising athletes from the state would be stranded in their bid to represent the state at both national and international competitions.
It is generally believed that successive administration’s in the state had done little or nothing to improve on the fortunes of sports generally.
Consequently, this has led to mass exodus of talents from the state to States that accord priority to sports developments.
