Team Ghana arrives in Strasbourg for final Olympic preparations

Members of Team Ghana have started arriving at their base camp in Strasbourg, France, to finalize their preparations for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Part of the team, led by Chef de Mission Isaac Aboagye Duah, arrived in Strasbourg yesterday. The remaining team members, including US-based athletes and their coach, are expected to join the camp on Friday.

Among those who travelled from Ghana were African high jump star Rose Amoanimaa Yeboah, athletics coach Salamatu Musa, and the medical team. 

The athletes arriving on Friday include sprinters Benjamin Azamati (100m) and Abdul-Rasheed Saminu (100m, 200m), as well as the 4x100m relay team consisting of Joseph Paul Amoah, Isaac Botsio, and Fuseini Ibrahim. The athletics team will be coached by Andrew Owusu.

Unfortunately, due to new regulations for submitting relay teams, Edwin Gadayi has been excluded from the team. The World Athletics and International Olympic Committee (IOC) have revised the rules to allow only five athletes in each relay team instead of six, to trim numbers and cut costs. The fifth athlete will have limited accreditation but will still have access to training facilities and the Games Village. With Saminu qualifying for the individual events, Gadayi could not be included in the relay team.

Gadayi had been a key member of the relay team, helping Ghana secure gold at the 2024 African Athletics Championships in Douala in the absence of Amoah and Azamati.

On July 9, the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) released the list of Ghana's 21-man contingent for the Centenary Olympic Games. The team is now gearing up for what promises to be a challenging and exciting Olympic campaign in Paris.