The world will miss the silky swerving skills and direct lancing shots of Andre Dede Ayew, Dominic Adiyiah, Ransford Osei, Opoku Agyeman and Emmanuel Agyeman Badu of Ghana at the next gathering of the world’s best sportsmen and women in London.
The event is the 2012 Olympic Games and the platform for the best athletes to showcase their talents and skills.
Certainly, the next Olympic Games will be the best and Londoners have a way of being classic in their organisations, to attract the most and best spectators.
The Ghana team for the most passionate game will be missing in action because they failed to qualify as Sudan beat them before expectant fans at the Accra Sports Stadium and drew the return leg in Khartoum, in Sudan.
Ghana has the record as the first African nation to win an Olympic medal when in 1992 the Black Meteors grabbed the bronze medal in soccer. Nigeria improved this feat when they won the gold in 1996. Cameroun repeated the achievement with gold for Africa in 2000. These remarkable achievements proved that African football was of age.
The splendid performances of the Black Stars at the Germany 2006 and South Africa 2010 World Cups, not to forget the African Nations Cup in Angola twined with the great show of the Black Meteors at the 2009 World Youth Championship in Egypt, plus the show of resilience and imagination by the Black Stars against England at the Wembley Stadium have demonstrated to the world that the great nation deserves to be at the next Olympic Games
The emerging new stars like Andre Dede Ayew, David Addy, Jonathan Mensah, Gladson Awako, Dominic Adiyiah, Ransford Osei, Joseph Addo, Samuel Inkoom, Emmanuel Agyeman Badu and others will surely be missed.
These are the stars of the future for Ghana and this break in competition will affect their preparations for the next World Cup in Brazil, where many football pundits believe Africa should once again be represented by the twinkle twinkling stars.
Indeed Ghana’s performance at the international level is gradually dwindling, and the earlier a solution is found, the better.
The 2012 Olympic Games will be another sports show that can not be missed, even when the Meteors will not be there, the other painful blow is that their female counterparts also failed to make it beyond the preliminary qualifying stages, going down to Ethiopia.
Now the pressure is on any Ghanaian sportsman who represents the nation to do his or her best to grab a medal.
Ghana is yet to win an Olympic gold medal, but whether it will be in boxing, table tennis, hockey, basketball, badminton or athletics, only, the Creator knows what is in the future and in store for Ghana Sports.
* Credit: Sammy Heywood Okine
