Punch Nigeria get WTF wildcard for Youth Olympics MARCH 25, 2014 BY KAZEEM BUSARI Taekwondo The World Taekwondo Federation has rewarded Nigeria with a wildcard to compete at the 2014 World Youth Olympics in Nanjing, China for the team’s consistency and performance at major international competitions in recent years. At the WTF qualifiers which ended on Friday in Taipei City, Chinese Taipei, 39 countries including two African nations – Egypt and Morocco – secured their places at the global championship holding from August 17 to 21. Despite Nigeria’s failure to secure a place from the qualifiers, the WTF considered the team’s pedigree on the global stage and decided to award one of the 20 wildcards available to Nigeria in the men’s event at the Olympics. Out of the 74 qualification places up for grabs at the two-day qualification tournament, Chinese Taipei secured five tickets. Five countries took home four qualification places each. They are Egypt, Azerbaijan, Russia, Belgium and Mexico, while four nations – Ukraine, Germany, Turkey and The Netherlands – won three tickets each. Eight countries won two tickets each: France, Colombia, Iran, Croatia, Thailand, Great Britain, Italy and Brazil. Canada, Morocco, Slovenia, Romania, Poland, Sweden, Kazakhstan, Argentina, Malaysia, Spain, Korea, Ecuador, Chile, Vietnam, Jordan, Singapore, Czech, Austria, Uzbekistan, the United States and Puerto Rico have one slot each. Out of a total of 100 places for the taekwondo competition at the Youth Olympic Games, the host country China automatically earned six places, three for men and three for women, and the remaining 20 are the universal places, also known as wildcards. The host country did not participate in the qualification tournament.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 04:44:08 +0000
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