Matraka Wrestling Club Wins Lagos Wrestling Championship.

Matraka club reign supreme at the 2nd edition of the Lagos State senior wrestling championship which was concluded on Wednesday inside the Sir Molade Okoya -Thomas indoor sports hall of the Teslim Balogun stadium, Surulere.

150 wrestlers from four clubs namely; Matraka, Laufem, Kirikiri and Angels competed for honours at the championship designed to prepare the athletes for the forthcoming "Eko 2012" 18th National sports festival which Lagos state will host in November.

The two day championship organised by the Lagos state wrestling association is an effort to ensure wrestlers prepare adequately for the forthcoming festival.

Head Technical committee, Lagos state sports council, Babatunde Fatayi-Williams congratulated the winners and runners up while urging these who did not finish on the podium to work hard.

Fatayi-Williams said " this is just one step toward the festival and we still have more steps to go, so we encourage the athletes, all the wrestlers and their coaches go back and to continue to work hard to ensure that come November/December when we have the 18th national sports festival, Lagos state will come first overall in wrestling".

Some of the wrestlers described the tournament as timely as it put them in shape and provided opportunity for individual wrestlers to assess their ability in a competitive environment having been training for long time.
Makinde David who fought in the heavyweight division explained that the competition is very nice and it helped wrestlers in so many ways.

" without competitions, we wouldn't know our grounds within the level of the game. So its very important and encouraging as we received certificate and money. You can see the atmosphere, most of us gained one or two things from this inter- club championship"said Makinde.

In his words, Patrick Igeh promised to win gold for Lagos at the festival. Igeh said "I so much appreciate what is going on in Lagos state and thank Governor Babatunde Fashola for encouraging sports men and women to come and our coaches for the way they've been handling us in the gym, generally they are trying and by the grace of God we will win the National sports festival".

Laufem wrestling club finished second at the senoir inter-club championship ahead of Kirikiri and Angel clubs in third and fourth position respectively. Cash rewards was given to the top three wrestlers in all divisions while certificate was also presented to the participants.

According to the technical director of the association, Jude Okiki, the wrestlers will regroup next month for an inter-state championship from where those that will represent Lagos state at the National Sports festival will be selected. 11 states are expected to participate in the tournament which will be staged in Lagos.