Injury has Igali in a lock

December 12 2003

Olympic gold medal wrestler Daniel Igali is caught in a very tight squeeze that could keep him from defending his title next summer at the Athens Games.
Igali, who turns 30 in February, will miss this weekend's Olympic team qualifier in Edmonton because of his second rib injury in six months. If he heals by January, Igali can qualify for Athens by entering a last-chance challenge tournament in which he would have to defeat the top three finishers in his weight class.

"It will be difficult, but the Olympic Games are so important to me that I decided to take that risk," Igali said in an interview.

The Nigerian-born Igali, who lives in Surrey, B.C., won the hearts of Canadians at the Sydney Olympics when he captured the country's first wrestling gold. He wept joyously, ran a lap of honour around the Canadian flag and knelt to kiss it as a signal of his gratitude to the country that gave him an opportunity.

This year of tough breaks and painful personal losses has been the antithesis of that kind of celebration.

In February, Igali had a ruptured disc in his neck and doctors operated to fuse two vertebrae. It cost him about 10 per cent of his flexibility. In April, his father, Leimokumo Paul Igali, died suddenly. In July, Daniel suffered his first rib injury of the season, knocking him off the roster for the Pan American Games.

In September, he went to the freestyle wrestling world championships in New York, won his first two matches and was tied at the end of regulation time in the third before losing in overtime. He placed 11th in the tournament, but only the top 10 gained automatic qualification for Athens.

The current rib injury came Nov. 8, fighting a U.S. wrestler in a tournament semi-final. Doctors told Igali it would take four to six weeks to heal.

"I've been feeling down, under the weather for the past week over not being able to wrestle in the qualifying, but I finally got some good news to smile about," Igali said.

He was referring to a commitment from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to kick in $200,000 toward building a school he has planned for his impoverished Nigerian hometown of Eniwari. The CIDA money will match funds for the $200,000 Igali that has been raising personally. He's at $175,000.

"This is very good news," he said. "I've had support from a lot of people in this project, from all Canadian regions and walks of life. I get personal donations from $5 from individuals to $50,000 from Paul Nemeth, my late mentor, who wanted to build the gym of the school. He wanted to be sure the children would have some place to play and train."

Nemeth, who was in his 90s, died in May, Igali said, "right after I returned from my father's burial. He was one of the first wrestling coaches when he came to Canada from Europe at age 20. When I came, he was one of the first to take me under his wing."

Igali's school project was a pledge he made to the kids of his hometown after Sydney, to replace a one-room shack that is so dilapidated students are sent home when it rains.

Igali had teamed up with the former Canadian University Services Overseas, now known simply as CUSO, to help with the project. Although work has begun -- foundations and floors for the six classrooms, staff room and assembly hall have been completed -- the matching funds from CIDA will allow Igali to complete the project. Donations to round out Igali's fund can be made through CUSO. Information is available on-line at http://www.CUSO.org.

Eniwari is a village of 6,000 located in the Niger Delta. About a third of the population is made up of school children.