York student Ohenewa Akuffo won a silver medal in the 72-kilogram class at the FILA Senior World Championships in freestyle female wrestling in Moscow Sept. 10.
After losing in the first round, Akuffo rallied to beat Olympic bronze medallist Kyoko Hamaguchi of Japan in the semifinal but lost the final to Olympic silver medallist and two-time world champion Stanka Hristova of Bulgaria.
world championship silver medal
The silver medal win follows her gold-medal performance in July at the Great Britain Cup in Sheffield, England. (See YFile, Aug. 9.)
In her first match in Moscow, Akuffo defeated Zumrud Gurbaynhajiyeva of Azerbaijan and followed that with wins over Maider Unda Gonzalez of Spain and Dan Li of China.
Videos of Akuffo’s matches can be viewed at the FILA web TV site (select 2010/FW/72Kg).
Akuffo’s next journey will be in two weeks as she heads for New Delhi, India to compete in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, where women’s wrestling is making its debut as a competition.
Left: Akuffo grapples with Stanka Hristova in the gold-medal match. Photo by Robert Wijtman.
When she’s not competing or taking marketing courses in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, Akuffo is busy working with a new organization called the Canadian Grappling & Striking Sports Council, an umbrella organization formed to work with provincial sanctioning bodies to ensure a standard of quality for the combative sports community, including mixed martial arts, boxing and wrestling.
Akffuo was interviewed on Sportsnet’s “MMA Connected” program about her involvement in the council along with her coach Dave Mair and former Ontario cabinet minister and York grad David Tsubouchi (BA ’72, JD ’75).