12-year-old Jada Yankey wins 13 medals at African Swimming Championship

Entering the 2024 Africa Acquatics Zone 2 juniors and seniors swimming championships as the youngest athlete did not deter 12 year old Jada Christiana Yankey from pushing for the top, she came well prepared and in the end, the UK born all-round athlete bagged a total of 13 medals to lead Ghana in the juniors' competition.

Young Jada, a boarding student of Millfield School in Somerset in the UK where she has access to world class training facilities, represented Ghana in 15 events during last week's tournament, by far the highest among the entire team, both seniors and juniors and she won medals in 13 of them as the host country totalled an unprecedented 28 medals in the juniors and another 28 in the seniors categories.

Individually, Jada Yankey won gold in 800m freestyle, silver in 200m individual medley and 200m backstroke before adding 3 bronze in 200m freestyle, 400m freestyle and 50m breastroke.

The 12 year old then teamed up to win gold in the 4x200m freestyle, 4x100 freestyle and 4x100m medley relays as well as mixed 4x100m medley silver and mixed 4x100m freestyle relay bronze.

Jada and her elder sister by 11 months, Rihanna Yankey who also won 3 gold and one silver medals in Accra, then joined the seniors women relay team to also win gold in 4×100m medley and 4x100m freestyle silver.

"I'm very excited to represent Ghana, the country I love. It was not necessarily about the medal count for me, but rather a strong sense of wanting to win for my country. I will continue to learn the sport, listen to my coaches, compete and enjoy representing the country well whenever I'm called upon," Jada Yankey said.

Both Yankee girls, according to their father, Charles Yankey, also UK born but grew up in Ghana where he attended Mfantsipim School, began swimming at the age of 6 months old but aside swimming, Jada also takes part in long distance running for her school, plays hockey and also competes in triathlons, biathlons as well as open water swimming. Rihanna is also a triathlete, enjoys athletics specifically sprinting and she also plays netball.

"Both of them are so loved in the UK but Jada is on another level. On Monday, her headmaster called her in front of her the whole school assembly read out some of the Ghana press articles on her and showed off all her 13 medals. The teachers all reported it was emotional," said Charles Yankey who as usual, accompanied them to Ghana for the 3-day competition.