Nigerian who won wrestling gold for Canada still looks back to native country - Canadian Press
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The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION
Nigerian who won wrestling gold for Canada still looks back to native country
By: James Keller, THE CANADIAN PRESS
9/02/2010 4:18 AM | Comments: 0
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SURREY, B.C. - Daniel Igali left his native Nigeria and sought refuge in Canada, wrestled at the Olympics while wearing the maple leaf and became a national celebrity for his memorable gold medal win and enchanting smile.
None of it would have been possible if he hadn't left behind his life in Nigeria to start anew in this country, says Igali, but even so, he has never stopped looking back to his homeland.
"If I was in Nigeria, I wouldn't have been an Olympic champ," says Igali, now 36, who carried the Olympic torch into a celebration in his adopted home of Surrey, B.C., on Monday.
"Canada gave me all the opportunities; Surrey supported me from the moment I got here. The Nigerian story is a different story, there's a lot of young kids that need help."
That need for help is something Igali knows all too well.
He first came to Canada as a 20-year-old wrestler competing at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria. Instead of returning to the strife and unrest of his African country, he sought refugee status and stayed behind.
Six years later, he was at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where he won Canada's first-ever gold medal in wrestling. The image of him kissing the Canadian flag after his victory became a classic Olympic memory.
He retired after a sixth-place finish at the 2004 Athens Games, and in the years that followed, he used his newfound public profile to create the Daniel Igali Foundation.
The foundation has operated an elementary school in his home village of Eniwari in the Niger Delta region since 2006. The Maureen Matheny Academy has 11 classrooms, a gym, a computer room and dorms, and also serves as a recreation centre for the community.
Many of the problems he left behind 16 years ago are still very real in Nigeria today, says Igali, but his hope is that the school can improve the lives of even a small number of students by mixing education and athletics.
"There's a lot of uprising because of the oil that has not been managed well, youth as young as 14 and 15 are being recruited to fight against the federal forces, a lot of them have died," says Igali.
"And that is what we're trying to correct. We're bringing sport and play to young kids in a very disadvantaged part of the country."
Igali has also tried to help Nigerian athletes compete at an international level, returning to coach two of the country's wrestlers at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, although neither came close to finishing on the podium.
Back in Canada, Igali, who splits his time between Surrey and Eniwari, draws on his experience to give motivational speeches to young people, holding up his gold medal win as an example of what's possible.
"For wrestling, it's something that had never been done before, so when I finally won it, all the other athletes thought it was possible," he says.
"And I think that's the same for a lot of visible minorities, kids who feel they don't have the opportunities or the talent that's required. I think that resonates with a lot of kids."