- For the third day, the Nigerian wrestling team failed to leave Istanbul, where they have been stranded due to bad weather conditions in Lagos.
For the third day, the Nigerian wrestling team failed to leave Istanbul, where they have been stranded due to bad weather conditions in Lagos.
The team represented the country at the African Wresting Championship in Algiers, where they won 14 medals.
The delegation, comprising 15 wrestlers and five officials, left Algiers to Istanbul before they would flyi to Lagos. But they have been unable to travel out of the Turkish capital because of bad weather.
This caused the flight to be cancelled and rescheduled for Wednesday.
They also had another delay on Wednesday, after weather conditions in Lagos failed to improve, which forced them to reschedule it for Thursday.
President of the Nigeria Wrestling Federation, Daniel Igali, in a chat with our correspondent on Wednesday, said he had instructed the delegation to look at the option of travelling to Abuja if the weather situation persists on Thursday.
“The athletes are okay and they have them in a hotel and feeding them three times daily. So, I had discussions with the coaches and the secretary and I told them to meet the airline and redirect the flight to Abuja tomorrow (today), if it’s going to be the same conditions,” Igali told The PUNCH.
The team, however failed to leave Turkey on Thursday again, due to weather difficulties.
“For the third day in a row, our wrestlers will have to spend the night in Istanbul, as their Turkish Airlines flight to Lagos has been cancelled due to bad weather,” The NWF tweeted.
One of the wrestlers who spoke with our correspondent, said they were not sure they would leave Turkey on Friday.
“We have been told just like before that we would leave tomorrow (Friday) and we are hopeful, but only God can confirm tomorrow (today),” the wrestler told The PUNCH.
Igali confirmed the new delay while speaking with our correspondent on Thursday.
“I spoke with them this morning (Thursday) but they were telling me they would get back to me in about an our. But the initial discussion we had, they told me the flight to Lagos was not coming, there is normally a flight to Port Harcourt every two, three days, that one isn’t coming today (Thursday) and even Abuja flights are not coming today, they are all cancelled.
“We wanted to get any available flight for them to come but from what they were saying, all the three flights were cancelled,”
