Former Ghanaian athlete, Wisdom Loh, has provided a detailed breakdown of why the country performed poorly at the just-ended Olympic Games in Paris, France.
In the view of Wisdom Loh, Ghana’s struggles at the Olympic Games essentially come down to a lack of funding and planning.
While he believes that the country has athletes whose talents surpass those of Jamaica, Wisdom Loh is concerned that the lack of investment in the sector is impeding the success of these athletes.
“Government is not investing in athletics, and that is the story. Ghana has better athletes than Jamaica. We have better athletes, but we are not investing in our athletics programs.
“The Ghanaian athletes are doing fantastically well because they have to hustle on their own to qualify for these tournaments. But in other countries, the athletes enjoy great support from their government. Despite the challenges, Ghanaian athletes still do very well, so imagine if the country invested in these athletes,” he told YouTube platform, Global Sports Today.
Coach Loh also detailed why Ghana’s Men’s 4x100m team was disqualified from the heat of their event at the games.
Wisdom Low noted two infractions on the part of Ghana that he believes ultimately resulted in the disqualification of the country.
“The changeover wasn’t smooth for the first leg, so it left them behind a bit. Also, Paul might have gotten out a bit sooner than expected, so he was out of the exchange zone by the time he got the baton from Fuseini. They were disqualified because of those two violations.
“It was the coach’s decision, and it’s like football where the coach picks the team based on the opponent he will be facing. Most of the time, Azamati runs the second leg. He only ran the third leg when we went to the Bahamas.
“There are multiple factors that led to us being disqualified, but ultimately it came down to their inability to effect the baton changes as they were taught,” he said.
Ghana went into the 2024 Olympic Games with a 21-man delegation of nine athletes and 12 officials. The country did not win a medal at the games.
EK