Daniel Igali

Early Years

Daniel Igali grew up in Nigeria in a family of 21 children. Influenced by his father’s involvement with politics, Igali became captain of the debate team in high school and got involved in student issues. His other passion was wrestling, an important part of the Ijaw tribe. In Ijaw culture, wrestling is accompanied by drumming, thought to instruct the wrestler during the match, with traditional wrestling songs hummed in the background. Victory is gained with a single takedown. In an interview with Wrestling Canada Lutte (WCL), Igali reports not remembering when he learned to wrestle, stating that, in his tribe, “everybody grows up wrestling, it is like swimming, because we are close to the sea. You grow up doing it and, at three years old, you know how to swim but don’t know who taught you. That is how wrestling was for me.”

Igali began competitive wrestling at the age of 16. Despite the absence of designated age groups in Nigeria at the time, he entered and won the 1990 Senior National Wrestling Tournament. Later he enrolled in the department of English at the University of Jos which he attended until 1994.

Wrestling Career in Canada

Daniel Igali first came to Canada to represent Nigeria at the 1994 Commonwealth Games held in Victoria. He finished in 11th place. The style and quality of Canadian wrestling left a lasting impression on him: “The Canadians were amazing, they won nine out of 10 gold medals. I admired them a lot, they were the best wrestlers I had seen, and I just wanted to wrestle remotely close to them.”

Igali’s desire to learn from Canadian wrestlers, combined with the turbulent political climate in Nigeria at the time, motivated Igali’s decision to skip the plane home, claiming refugee status. He convinced Tom Murphy, a volunteer driver for the Games, to let him live in his home so he could keep wrestling and studying in Canada. Igali first enrolled at Douglas College, then completed a Master of Arts degree in criminology at Simon Fraser University where he won 116 consecutive matches over three years. He became a Canadian citizen in 1998.

At the 1998 World Wrestling Championships, Igali won 4th place. The next year, Igali became the first Canadian male to win the World Freestyle Wrestling Championships. He had been motivated by his adoptive mother, Maureen Matheny, who was dying of cancer and whom Igali described as his greatest inspiration.

Igali also won bronze at the 1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg with which he became the first Canadian male to win a world freestyle wrestling title; silver at the 1999 Wrestling World Cup in Spokane, Washington, and gold in the men’s freestyle wrestling 69 kg division at the 1999 World Wrestling Championships in Ankara, Turkey. This victory meant he automatically qualified for the Olympics the following year.

Olympic Career

Daniel Igali won the Olympic gold medal at the 2000 Olympic Summer Games in Sydney, Australia. During his first match in the men’s freestyle, 69 kg weight division, he defeated Georgian wrestler Emzar Bedineishvili, an adversary he had taken on at the World Championships the year before. His next match pitched him again Iranian wrestler Amir Tavakolian. A tie between the two adversaries was broken using classification points (3–1) to determine the winner with Igali declared the victor. Igali moved on to quarter-finals where he beat Yosmany Sanchez of Cuba and Lincoln Mcllravy of the United States.

Igali's competition for the gold medal was the Russian Arsen Gitinov. He moved to an early 4–0 lead, but the Russian rallied to tie the bout and the first round finished at 4–4. In the second, Igali scored a quick two points for taking the Russian to the down position and a third for exposing his back to the mat. It gave him a 7–4 victory and the gold medal.

In celebration, Igali wore the Canadian flag as a cape, removed it and placed it carefully on the mat. He ran around it, clockwise and counterclockwise, then knelt to kiss it. Tears streamed down his face at the playing of the national anthem at the medal presentation. This victory made him the first Canadian to ever win the Olympic gold in wrestling. As of 2025, Daniel Igali remains the only male athlete in the country to have earned a gold medal in wrestling at the Olympics.

Other Competitions

In 2000, Daniel Igali was awarded the Lou Marsh Trophy (now the Northern Star Award), recognizing him as Canada’s most outstanding athlete that year. He received the prestigious Norton H. Crowe Award (Canada’s Top Senior Male Athlete) at the Canadian Sport Awards the same year, as he did the following year (2001).

Igali was the Canadian team flag bearer at the opening ceremony of the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England. He amassed one additional international title during that competition, switching to the middleweight division (74 kg) and winning a gold medal.

At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, Igali made it to the quarter-finals and placed sixth in his weight division before fully retiring from competition.

Charity Work and Other Activities

Since he retired from competition, Daniel Igali has continued to devote much of his time to philanthropy, politics and coaching. In 2001, he initiated a joint project with students at Heritage Park School in Mission, BC, to build a school and gymnasium in Eniwari, Nigeria, where he grew up. To that effect, in 2002 he created the Daniel Igali Foundation, an organization that helps young people in developing countries achieve academic and career goals. The Maureen Matheny Elementary school opened in 2006. It was named after Igali’s greatest inspiration – his adoptive mother.

In 2005, Igali declared he would run for political office as a Surrey-Newton candidate for the British Columbia Liberal Party (now BC United). Although he won the nomination, Igali ultimately lost the provincial election to the New Democrat Party candidate. He eventually became a member of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly from 2011 to 2019 after moving back to Nigeria. In an interview with Wrestling Canada Lutte (WCL), Igali claims to have “passed the most bills by an individual” over the course of the eight years he was in office.

Igali coached the Bayelsa state team from 2006 to 2007, until he was asked to coach the Nigerian national team by the sport minister. In 2019, Igali became the Minister for Youth Sports Development in Bayelsa. He became president of the Nigeria Wrestling Federation (NWF) in 2019, with the goal to make Nigeria one of the top 10 wrestling nations worldwide.

Honours

Daniel Igali has been inducted into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame and Museum (2001), the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame (2002), Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame (2007), and the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame (2012).