Nigeria’s wrestling sensation Esther Kolawole has won the Spanish Wrestling Grand Prix gold medal after defeating American wrestler Haylie Jaffe 10-0 by superiority in the final in Madrid on Saturday.
The Paris 2024 Olympian capped off a dominant tournament performance, having earlier demolished Spain’s Lydia Perez 10-0 in the quarter-finals before securing a 4-1 victory over Poland’s Alicja Nowosad in the semi-finals.
Kolawole’s comprehensive victory over Jaffe represents a significant improvement on her bronze medal performance from the 2024 edition of the tournament, showcasing her continued development on the international stage.
The reigning African champion’s participation in the Spanish Grand Prix, which runs from July 4 to 7, forms part of her preparation for the World Wrestling Ranking Series in Budapest, Hungary, scheduled to begin on July 14.
Both tournaments serve as crucial preparation for the 2025 World Wrestling Championship in Croatia in September, with the Nigeria Wrestling Federation leaving nothing to chance in exposing its athletes to international competition.
Kolawole is accompanied on the international trips by the Nigerian National Wrestling Women’s coach, Purity Akuh, who expressed optimism about the wrestler’s prospects.
“We are heading to these tournaments to compete. However, we want to continue to expose our wrestlers by competing with their international counterparts in such tournaments,” Akuh said.
In doing so, it would help us to assess the strength and track progress of our wrestlers on how they performed at regular intervals to monitor improvement and adjust training accordingly.”
The Wrestling Federation’s strategic approach to international exposure has already yielded results, with Kolawole claiming bronze in the 62kg category at the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid, alongside Ogunsanya Christinah, who secured bronze in the 53kg division.
This latest gold medal victory further underlines Kolawole’s status as one of Nigeria’s premier wrestling talents and bodes well for her preparations ahead of the World Wrestling Championship later this year.
