Youth Olympics: Team Ghana's medal hopes fading

Ghana has got one last straw to hold on to in the hopes of getting at least one medal from the ongoing summer youth Olympics in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Day five begun with Sandra Mensimah Owusu who competed in the women’s 58kg weightlifting event alongside seven other competitors from countries including Tunisia, Egypt, the USA and Greece.

Sandra went through the 58, 65 and 70kg categories with some level of ease but her best was not enough to see her lift 80kg and beyond after three attempts.

Ghofrane Belkhir from Tunisia went ahead to win that event after lifting 108kg. The eighteen-year-old Sandra Mensimah Owusu is disappointed but she is happy to have improved on her previous record. "I am a little bit disappointed but it is fine because I got a good placement and I have improved on my personal best." Asked what her next step would be, Sandra said "I have to try and put this loss behind me and focus on the upcoming All Africa Games. I know I have to train hard in order to get a medal from there, that's just what I will do."

Temperatures dropped to 10 degrees Celsius with some rain showers by the time Solomon Diafo was ready to compete in the first heat of the men’s 400m race.

The seventeen-year-old who had prior to this race trained in temperatures between 18 and 24 degrees was quite jittery from the start, but he surmounted all odds to finish third in his heat with a time of 49.08 seconds.

That performance was enough to see him progress to the finals of the 400m event because, by the competition rules, athletes who finish with the best of time after collation of results from all heats qualify for the finals. Solomon Diafo had the eighth best time and thus picked up the last ticket to Sunday’s finals. He is "hopeful of getting a medal. The weather wasn't good for me today, but if Sunday's weather is better, maybe around 20 to 24 degrees, by all means I will get a medal", said a breathless Solomon.

The beach volleyball team who were also in action yesterday lost by two straight sets to Costa Rica in the final preliminary game of Pool G. Despite their defeat, the pair of Kelvin Carboo and Eric Tsatsu may qualify for the round of 24 if they have a good point ratio. This can only be determined at the end of all preliminary games by 2000GMT today. Russia still lead the medal table with a total of 27 medals consisting of 18 gold, 6 silver and 3 bronze. Hungary maintain their position in second place with 8 gold, one each of silver and bronze making it ten in all. Mixed National Olympic Committees come in at third with 22 medals made up of seven gold, seven silver and eight bronze.