Taekwondo: Team Nigeria Gets Asian, South American, African Opponents

FUJAIRAH OPEN: Team Nigeria Get first Draws against Asian, South American and African Opponents

By Niyi Busari

Draws for Team Nigeria at the World Taekwondo G-2 ranked Fujairah Open are out with the team poised to meet a variety of competitions from Asia, South America and Africa.

Team Nigeria is represented at the prestigious event by five athletes – African Champion Chinazum Nwosu, African Bronze medalists Benjamin Okuomose and Elizabeth Anyanacho, National Champions and Nigeria Open gold medalists Ifeoluwa Ajayi and Peter Itiku.

African Champion, Chinazum Nwosu will begin hostilities with home girl, Ramadhan Fatema Yusuf of the United Arab Emirates in the round of 32. A win will earn her a round of 16 meeting with the tournament’s number two seed, Lo Chia-Ling of Chinese Taipei, who is a former two-time world youth champion and grand prix silver medalist.

All African Games Bronze Medalist Elizabeth Anyanacho who is the tournament’s 4th seed will face 5th seed and double Asian Games Bronze Medalist, Tajikistan’s Mokhru Khalimova in the quarterfinals of the female -67kg.

In the male -74kg, Nigeria’s undisputed national champion Ifeoluwa Ajayi will have to overcome Uzbekistan’s Tukhtasinboev Mavionbek in the round of 64 in order to meet the number two seed, Greece’s Tsipounis Stavros, who won gold medals at the 2017 President Cup and 2019 Greece Open.

In the male -80kg, Nigeria Open gold medalist Peter Itiku will have to defeat Kenya’s Wafula Innocent in the round of 32, in order to secure a battle with current World Silver Medalist, Brazil’s Martins Soares Icaro Miguel.

Benjamin Okuomose, who is the fourth ranked seed of the tournament, has a bye and will await the winner between Egypt's Hussein Ahmed & Russia's Gabrasov Pabel.

Hostilities commence at 09:00 hrs [Dubai local time] at the Sheikh Zayed Sport City Stadium Fujairah, where organizers set up 10 competition fighting courts to better contain the huge numbers of participating athletes at the event.

Participating in the event are 383 senior athletes from 43 countries including: USA, China, Greece, Germany, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, India, Syria, Russia, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Chinese Taipei, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Brazil, Swaziland, Yemen, Iraq, Kuwait, Pakistan, Sweden, French Guinea, Oman, USA, Croatia, Iran, Mauritania, France, Nepal.

African countries at the event included Nigeria, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, Chad, Kenya, Sudan, Cameroon and Benin Republic.