Ghana’s 10-man contingent that went to the 2018 Youth Olympics with a target of at least three medals has arrived home with nothing to show for their efforts.

Ghana failed to win a medal at the games after competing in four sporting disciplines with five athletes. The country competed in athletics, beach volleyball, swimming and weightlifting. In athletics, 400m runner Solomon Diafo finished eighth in the finals with a time of 48.47secs.

Eric Tsatsu and Kelvin Carboo also represented the country in Beach Volleyball and was knocked out in round of 24 by host nation, Argentina. The two athletes also won silver at the Africa Youth Championship held in Algiers, Algeria.

Speaking on arrival at the Kotoka International Airport, the leader of the contingent, Evans Yeboah counted the positives from the competition and said that the athletes will use their experience from the tournament as a springboard for future competitions.

“This is our third participation in the Youth Olympics Games. The point is that we have gone to participate in the Youth Olympic Games, 206 countries in the last one month. It was very insightful for the athletes because it gave them a good opportunity to expand their knowledge and also expand their competition level with their age mates” “If you pick an athlete like Abeiku Jackson with swimming, he performed and got to the semi-finals. His performance is the best we’ve had in swimming since the Olympic Games started. If you pick an athlete like Sandra Mesima Owusu who was our weightlifter, she placed 7th. If you pick athletics which was basically with Solomon Diafo, he performed creditably well. He placed 8th out of 52 athletes and that for us insightful”, said.

Swimmer Abeiku Jackson who was one of Ghana medal hopefuls and the captain of the team attributed the underwhelming performance to the poor preparations and harsh weather conditions in Argentina.

“The weather did not really help us. Not me alone but beach volley as well. The weather condition was very bad for them. They should invest more in the sports. Get sponsorships from corporations so that we can push the sport forward and push Ghana forward. Preparations weren’t the best for us. If we had some camping or some fund to push money into our preparations, I think a better result would have come out, he said.