ECOWAS tourney: Halutie to lead Team Ghana to glory

Ghanaian athletics fans will, for the first time since this year’s Commonwealth Games, see Hor Halutie in action as she leads Team Ghana to challenge for laurels at the ECOWAS Athletics Championship set for the Cape Coast Stadium on Friday and Saturday.

Halutie was the nation’s most successful athlete at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast Australia, as she reached the finals of the 100m event on her debut.

A former student of T.I. Amadyya SHS (AMASS) in Kumasi, a known hub of athletes in the country, Halutie has been the most consistent female sprinter based in the country since 2016, winning the Ghana Athletics Circuit Championships 100m event in 2016 and also winning the circuit 100m and 200m at the first leg in Sekondi and Cape Coast this season, before her impressive showing in Gold Coast.

This weekend, she will seek to further establish her credentials in the sprints as she leads Ghana’s women’s team to compete in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m events.

Halutie is star athlete in the 44-member list for Team Ghana made up of only home-based stars who were selected from the Inter Schools and Colleges (InterCo) athletics competitions across the country, as well as from the GAA Circuit Championships and the Open Championships held at Kumasi recently.

In the track events, the athletes will compete in the sprints for both male and female events, the middle distances, as long distance races and the male hurdles.

The championship will also see Ghana challenge for medals in javelin, shot putt, high jump, discus and triple jump.

Ghana will be joined by 15 other countries to compete for medals in all the athletics events approved for international meets, except the marathon.

The countries who have confirmed their participation and are expected to arrive in Cape Coast by Thursday include Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cape Verde.