Akwasi Frimpong
Ghana’s sole athlete for next year Winter Olympic Games, Akwasi Frimpong has been granted an Olympic Scholarship that would see him prepare adequately for the Pyeongchang Games in South Korea.
With this, he would receive a fixed monthly grant of $1500 which would be paid through the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) for his training and coaching costs in preparation towards the Games which would begin on February 9 toFebruary 25, 2018.
The Olympic scholarship would contribute to his access to an appropriate training facility and a coach specialised in his sporting discipline which is the Bobsled and Skeleton.
Frimpong has been working hard to qualify for the Games and will need to fulfil the International Olympic Committee (IOC) rules, which require a minimum of five races on three different ice tracks in two years.
He is almost through with that requirement because during his first season, he competed in 12 races on four different ice tracks namely; Calgary, Utah, Lake Placid and Germany.
In addition, he will need to rank in the top 60 on the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) world ranking by January 14, 2018. Frimpong was ranked 95th in world during the 2016/2017 season, though it was only his first year as a skeleton athlete.
If successful, Frimpong will be the second athlete in Ghana’s history to compete under the flag of Ghana in the Winter Olympics. Kwame Nkrumah competed in the slalom ski event in 2010 in Vancouver.
He will also be the first athlete from West Africa ever to compete in the skeleton event, and the first black male skeleton athlete from the entire continent of Africa.
The sport for years has been dominated by white athletes, so Frimpong is already breaking boundaries across the world. Frimpong competed for Ghana in February, during the IBSF World Championships in Koenigssee, Germany.
He was the first West African to compete at the World Championships in the skeleton event, and the only Ghanaian athlete nominated for the 2018 Winter Olympics.
