Ghana Athletics sets ambitious Olympic medal goal

Ghana Athletics, the governing body of track and field athletics in the country, has set an ambitious goal of winning Olympic medals at the Summer Olympics within the next four years.

To achieve this target, Ghana Athletics (GA) aims to concentrate its efforts on events where Ghana has a competitive advantage such as sprint races for males and females, including relays, as well as vertical and horizontal jump events.

Ghana Athletics President, Bawah Fuseini, disclosed at a press briefing in Accra yesterday that the national athletics teams are also poised to make a significant impact at upcoming international competitions, including the African Games (Accra 2023) slated for March next year and the World Athletics Championships.

Support for athletes

He said the association would focus on assisting and nurturing both Ghana's foreign-based athletes and home-based contingent to reach their highest levels in the coming years.

It is in that regard that the GA is promoting collaboration between some retired elite athletes based overseas and their local counterparts to put their expertise at the disposal of young athletes to achieve their full potential.

The athletics chief disclosed that the national team would be falling on the expertise of retired athletes and trainers, including Andrew Owusu, Leonard Myles Mills, John Ampomah, Robert Duffuor, Emmanuel Dasor, Atsu Nyamadi and Eric Nkansah to help prepare Ghanaian athletes for major competitions like the upcoming African Games.

For his part, the association's vice president, Charles Osei Asibey, called for increased investment from the government in the sport, arguing that if a proportion of funding given to the senior national football team, Black Stars, was invested in athletics, Ghana would win medals on the world stage within a short period.

He lamented the situation where the country expected medals from athletes who are semi-professional after leaving school and are combining athletics and other professions.

To this end, it was disclosed that the association had submitted a plan to the Ministry of Youth and Sports to ensure that national athletes received some funding to support their training activities.

The CEO of the association, Phillippina Frimpong, disclosed that her team had not yet settled on South Africa as a training base for the national team ahead of the 13th African Games, while the qualification window for athletes hoping to represent Ghana at the Pan-African competition closes on February 2024.

Competition schedule

She also unveiled the schedule of domestic and international competitions the association had planned to participate in next year, beginning with the National Cross Country event in Kumasi in January. Ghana is expected to compete in eight events namely, the World Indoor Championships, African Games, World Cross Country Championship, ECOWAS Championship, Penn Relays Championship (Paris 2024 Olympic Games Qualifiers), World Relays Championship (Paris 2024 Olympic Games qualifiers), 5 Nations Championship, and African Championships (Paris 2024 Olympic Games qualifiers) in the coming year.