NSA clarifies Anokye’s World Relay Championship snub

The National Sports Authority (NSA) has clarified that it paid air tickets for Ghana’s contingent submitted by the Ghana Athletics Association (GAA) for Ghana’s relay team to participate in the World Relay Championship in Poland. This comes against allegations that the fastest sprinter, Josephine Anokye was snubbed because the GAA asked her to pay for her own flight and visa acquisition.

A statement from the NSA said, “the Ghana Athletics Association (GAA) submitted a list of 10 athletes to the NSA for consideration to be supported with air tickets to embark on the trip to Poland for the World Relays Championship.

“Upon receiving the request, the Authority made the necessary arrangements to secure the tickets for the team, a couple of days before the championship. In addition to that, the Ministry of Youth and Sports also supported the team with an amount of $10,000.00 (USD) to cover the per diem budget of the contingent.

“The GAA has since duly acknowledged the support from the NSA and the MoYS respectively. They have subsequently indicated to us that they arrived safely in Poland and took part in the championship.

“All this while, the NSA nor the MoYS did not receive any complaints from any athlete, until this issue of an aggrieved athlete surfaced in the media. The Authority wishes to emphasize that, tickets were made available to the contingent based on the request from the GAA and as such, had no hand in the selection process of the team to represent Ghana at the championship.”

It added that further checks with the GAA indicated that the athlete notified them of her inability to honour the invitation extended to her.

The NSA called on all aggrieved athletes to channel their grievances to the appropriate quarters, including the authority to avoid any form of unhealthy working relations with relevant mandated sports bodies.

The Arizona State University student is Ghana’s fastest female sprinter so far this season with a time of 11:40s in 100m and 23.00s in 200m but was not part of team Ghana’s relay squad in the World Relay Championship which served as qualifiers to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games in Japan this year.