Dakar, Nov 19 (APS) – Players of the Senegal senior national Football team celebrated, Tuesday, in Diamniadio (west), the wrestler Oumar Kane, known as Reug-Reug, the first Senegalese to win the title of champion of the ONE Championship heavyweight world.
The ceremony took place twenty minutes before the kick-off of Senegal’s match against Burundi, at the Abdoulaye-Wade stadium in Diamniadio, around thirty kilometers east of Dakar.
Senegal and Burundi play the sixth and final day of qualifying for the 2025 African Cup of Nations.
The ceremony dedicated to the world heavyweight champion of the ONE Championship was held at the entrance to the lawn of the Abdoulaye-Wade stadium, in the presence of the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, Khady Diène Gaye , and the president of the Senegalese Football Federation, Augustin Senghor.
Lions captain Kalidou Koulibaly presented the 32-year-old wrestler with a jersey.
Reug-Reug shook hands with the national team players, who were preparing to enter the pitch for the kick-off of the match against Burundi.
Aged 32, he beat Russian Anatoly Malykhin by split decision, after five rounds, on the night of November 9 to 10, in Bangkok, Thailand.
Reug-Reug ended the invincibility of the 36-year-old Russian, who had fought 14 fights without a single defeat.
The Senegalese champion had obtained four consecutive victories and one defeat in mixed martial arts, in seven fights, before the fight against Anatoly Malykhin.
He won by knockout four times and won three fights by split decision.
Reug-Reug grew up in Thiaroye-Sur-Mer, near Dakar, where he began his wrestling career with the “mbapatt”, wrestling championships with or without striking reserved for beginners.
In mixed martial arts, he fought his first fight in January 2021, against Cameroonian Pierre Alain Ngalani.
SK/ESF/MTN
