Abugiri makes history at Commonwealth Games

Team Ghana made a bright start to their campaign at the 2014 Commonwealth Games after judoka, Razak Abugiri, won a bronze medal in the men’s -60kg contest on the first day of competition on Wednesday 24th July, at the Scottish Exhibition Conference Centre in Glasgow.

Abugiri wrote his name into the history books after becoming the first Ghanaian judoka to win a medal at the Commonwealth Games, after defeating Mozambique’s Neuso Moz Sigauque in a one sided contest.

Another judoka, Dominic Agudoo exited the competition at the quarter finals in the -60kg repechage contest while Alex Amoako lost out to Andreas Krassas in the -66kg contest in the preliminary round of 32.

Meanwhile, the men’s and women’s Team Table Tennis teams recovered from their opening defeats to England (3:0) and Singapore (3:0) respectively to win their next matches.

The women’s Table Tennis Team beat Tanzania 3:2 to restore hopes of qualification from the Women’s Team-Group 3 while the men’s team also beat Seychelles in three straight sets.

Similarly, the men’s Badminton team came back strongly to beat Kenya 3:2, having lost 5:0 to India in their first game in the Mixed Teams Group Play Stage-Group B at the Emirates Arena.

Team Badminton will be coming up against Uganda on the second day of the competition on Friday25th July.

In swimming, teenagers Abeiku Jackson and Kwaku Addo scaled new heights after clocking their personal bests in the preliminary round of the men’s 50m butterfly heats.

Jackson equaled his personal best of 27:21 to win the heat while Addo finished with a new personal best of 27.80 to take second place. But their qualifying times fell short of the qualification mark for the next round of the competition.

Meanwhile, Jedidiah Amoako-Ackah became Ghana’s first track cyclist to compete on the international stage after taking part in the men’s Match Sprint at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome. The Glasgow based cyclist missed to qualification to the final round after finishing 26th overall.

Jedidiah commented about his achievement:"I haven't been doing this for long you know - 10 months," he told BBC Sport. "I only actually started sprinting in March.

"I've kind of just dived right into the whole experience and I'm very glad. I've been living in Scotland for 14 years. When I'm speaking to my Scottish friends, my Scottish accent will sort of switch on!"