The newly-re-elected President of the Ghana Athletics Association, Prof. Francis Dodoo has expressed sadness at the hasty departure of his opponent George Lutterodt from congress following his victory in the GAA’s presidential race.

Minutes after Prof. Dodoo was declared winner of the hotly contested vote having polled 11 out of the total vote of 19 votes, George Lutterodt and his entourage walked out of congress in anger.

Lutterodt, who was appointed as GAA Chairman between 2001 and 2004, was not present for the swearing in of the new officers and also failed to congratulate the new executive on the floor of Congress.

The occasion was historic because this was only the second time that the GAA was holding democratic elections having held the first one in 2010 which Prof. Dodoo won. But it was also the first time that Lutterodt was taking part in a democratic election.
Commenting on Dr. Lutterodt's hasty departure from the Congress grounds without as much a congratulatory handshake, Dodoo said:
"That was the low point of the day in that, given that this was by all intents and purposes a sporting contest, I would have thought that the customary handshake or embrace, a common feature of even boxing contests, was called for,” Prof. Dodoo said.
Nevertheless, Dodoo suggested that his doors would remain open for Lutterodt if he had any ideas about how to move Ghana Athletics forward.
After thanking the GAA members for their continued support, Prof. Francis Dodoo promised to soon present an outline of a second-term agenda to strengthen and improve athletics in the country.
"I think in the collaborative spirit in which we prepared for these elections, I must first sit down with my elected colleagues to fashion out a collective agenda by harmonising the various ideas that we respectively hold for moving Ghana athletics forward."
Asked for his thoughts on what was at times a very spirited Congress, Dodoo said with a wry smile on his face, "Today reminded me of various Ghana-Nigeria duels that I participated in during the height of the Ghana-Nigeria Friendship Games."
Meanwhile, www.liquidsportsportsghana.com understands that all candidates were given enough time to present their addresses to Congress despite allegations by George Lutterodt that the incumbent GAA President was given about one and half hours to present his address to Congress.
It should be noted that as the outgoing GAA President, Prof. Dodoo was constitutionally mandated to present an end-of-the-quadrennial report on his stewardship over his four-year tenure to the general assembly, before the old administration was dissolved.
Following his address and dissolution of his executive board, Congress unanimously decided to give each candidate a few minutes to present their addresses to the house before elections.
This was after a suggestion for candidates to be given 10 minutes to present their manifestos was cut down to three minutes, by the general assembly.
The suggestion by Lutterodt that Dodoo had anything to do with that decision is disingenuous at best.
Despite that, Lutterodt actually only spoke for 2 minutes, and instead of providing a vision for how he would move athletics forward, he took the negative road of suggesting that Dodoo had brought nothing but division to the athletics family, and that he would do better.
He gave no specifics about what he would do. Dodoo, on the other hand outlined the continuation of developmental objectives including coaching courses, camping athletes, finding college scholarships for athletes, increasing the number of competitions, etc. as his goals for Ghana Athletics over the next four years.
In a historic second GAA democratic Congress, Prof. Francis Dodoo won by a 11-8 vote to beat off competition from a former GAA Chairman George Lutterodt to successfully retain his position at he GAA’s Congress held at the Theodosia Okoh National Hockey Pitch on Saturday.
Dodoo’s vice President, Dr. S. L. Lamptey also retained his position after polling 8 votes while Princeworth Anane-Asare and Reks Brobbey polled 6 and 5 votes respectively.
In what proved to be the closest contest of the day, former triple jumper Marc Dzradosi polled 10 votes to win the Treasurer position ahead of incumbent Richard Agyapong who secured 9 votes.
Sam Ayer was named as the GAA’s Organising Secretary after the other contestants, Bawah Fuseini and Emmanuel Sekyere Arhin, withdrew from the race at the last minute.