London 2017: Ghana’s hope rests on Amponsah after Eke, Amankwah fail
Sprinter Janet Amponsah carries the heavy burden of Ghana’s hope as she goes into action tomorrow, in the women’s 200m heats at the Athletics World Championships ongoing in London.
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Amponsah remains the only man individual athlete out of the eight-team delegation Ghana has at the London Games, after teammates, Nadia Eke, Emmanuel Dasor and Alex Amankwah all failed to make it past their heats. The other four will be competing in the women’s relay event.
Amankwah, making her debut at the World Championships, will have to draw inspiration from her own self to make it past the heats as those who competed before her.
In praying for a relatively good list to compete from in the heats, Amankwah will have to also strategise to at least, qualify from the heats, given that Eke, Dasor and Amankwah were unable to hold the flag that high.
After the individual race, Amponsah will also lead the women’s 4x100m relay team for their races on Saturday.
Eke, who went into her triple jump heats as Africa’s champion, failed to impress and was unable to make her qualifying jump of 14.20m, as she managed a 13.54m jump, not enough to see her through to the final today.
Eke finished 23rd in the qualifiers and attributed her poor showing to injury as she revealed on social media .
Dasor, scheduled for the men’s 400m, on the other hand, did not start.
Dasor, reportedly, sustained a knee injury on the last day before the event and was thus given a medical form to be excused from the competition, without having to face any further consequence
Amankwah missed qualification to the next round by seconds as he finished fourth in the men’s 800m heats in a time of 1:47.22. Unfortunately, it was not good enough to earn him a spot on the best fourth-placed athletes’ list.
Team Ghana has struggled to make an impact at the World Athletics Championships and could not even make it to Beijing two years ago, due to visa problems.