Team Ghana fail to win medal at Bahamas 2017

Team Ghana failed to bring home a medal from the sixth Commonwealth Youth Games held in Nassau, Bahamas despite their efforts and high determination.

Ghana was presented by nine athletes in six disciplines, namely: athletics, boxing, beach volleyball, swimming, judo and tennis but could not reach a medal in any of the disciplines due to higher standards and level of competition presented by other athletes.

However, Chef de Mission for the Games, Mawuko Afadzinu, has praised the performance of the young Ghanaians at the Games, especially the beach volleyball team and swimmer Jackson.

Team Ghana’s pair of Kelvin Kartey Carbon and Eric Tsatsu reached the third place final of the competition but lost narrowly to Australia, thereby finishing fourth overall, with England taking gold, Cyprus taking silver and Austrlia picking the bronze medals.

But Afadzinu who is an executive member of the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) board and president of the Ghana Table Tennis Federation described their performance as the best, saying the team needs more competitions and exposure to enable them get the needed experience to win at international level.

He said on the whole, Ghana’s athletes were relatively young and it would be prudent to encourage and guide them in their chosen fields so that they do not lose hope.

“The athletes were very positive, their enthusiasm was very good and they were focused. God willing, if things go on well like this, it will be the beginning of a long journey of success,” he said.

In swimming, Ghana’s Abeiku Jackson although qualified for two finals could not win any medal but, however, reduced his entry times for the competitions.

In the 50m freestyle, Abeiku finished seventh with a drop in time of 53.75secs against the earlier time recorded at 53.82secs as entry time for the final.

He was the seventh best time in the 50m freestyle men final an improvement over the last Games in Samoa.

For the first time in the history Ghana Sports, Ghana made it to three finals, one if which was a stand- by finalist, fifth and seventh in the 50m butterfly and 50m freestyle finals all with good times.