No Ghanaian athlete has qualified for the Olympic Games to be staged in Paris later this year.
After what looked like a successful African Games for Team Ghana, the downside however is that none of the times, heights or distances covered at Accra 2023 meets the required standard to compete in track and field at the Olympic Games.
Ghana’s Joseph Paul Amoah won gold in the men’s 200m event at the Games in a time of 20.70 but it is still a few milliseconds shy of the accepted qualifying time for the Olympic Games.
The qualifying time is pegged at 20.16. Joseph Paul Amoah’s personal best in the 200m is at 20.08.
In order to qualify for the Olympics he will have to revisit that form.In the high jump, Ghana won double gold medals in the men’s and women’s divisions of the event.
Cadman Yamoah cleared a height of 2.23m while Rose Amoanima Yeboah who also won gold in 2019 cleared a height of 1.90m to win gold in Accra.
The Olympic qualifying height for the high jump for men however stands at 2.33m while the women will have to jump a height of 1.97m to make it on the plane to the French capital.
Ghana’s fastest man, Benjamin Azamati will also have a lot to do from now till June to try to qualify for the Olympics. He finished 5th in the 100m final in 10.45s – which ranks amongst the lowest times he has ran since he started running professionally.
Olympic qualifying time for 100m is at an incredible 10.00. To put this time into perspective, only five Ghanaians have ran that time or better in the history of sport in this country – Azamati himself whose national record stands at 9.90, Joseph Paul Amoah who ran 9.94 after the pandemic, 9.98s for Leo Myles Mills who held the national record for close to 2 decades, Aziz Zakari at 9.99s and Eric Nkansah whose record is at 10.00.
Azamati will have to put in extra work now that the outdoor season has begun to hit the qualifying time for the Olympic Games.
Ghana’s female sprinters were impressive but they will all have to make a time of 11.07s to qualify for the global sporting showpiece.
In long-distance running, William Amponsah may have won hearts in the men’s 10,000m and won a silver medal in the half marathon but there is still some distance he has to go to make the qualifying time for both events.
With the outdoor season just starting and athletes having from now until the 30th of June to make the Olympic times, hopefully, we see a lot more Ghanaian athletes putting themselves in contention for a place at the Games.
