Who’ll go to Martha Bissah’s rescue?
Somebody must come to Martha Bissah’s rescue before her bright athletic future gets ruined. This is our plea to the powers that be, as the young Ghanaian talent continues to be out of action following a ban by the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC).
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It is a crying shame that the barely 18-year-old middle distance runner has been shut out of the tracks for reasons quite amusing to contemplate.
And the pain of it all got crystallised at a recent national championship circuit in Cape Coast where she had gone, ready to prove her mettle, but was denied participation by the organisers, or so we were told (see story on back).
What is Martha’s crime?
For starters, the 800-metre athlete who shot into the limelight following a golden performance at the Nanjing Junior Olympics in China two years ago must have become the envy of her own officials.
We are tempted to doubt this, but the story is told of how Martha’s troubles began after President John Dramani Mahama had honoured her with a GH¢10,000 award for her excellence in Nanjing.
But that gesture by the President to motivate the young lad turned out to be oxygen for a hate campaign against Martha, as it were.
Why should that be, and why on earth would the GOC suddenly ask Martha to deposit part of the money with it as guarantee for the purchase of a ticket for her university scholarship trip to the USA?
Indeed, without the President’s money, what would the GOC have done regarding the scholarship trip?
We find it very unfortunate that the GOC, and for that matter the Ghana Athletics Association (GAA), deemed it expedient to put Martha on ice as a result of these developments and the alleged continued stance by the girl not to avail herself of moves to iron out issues.
We think this state of affairs is hurting Ghana athletics and Martha’s future, much as it is also belittling the image of those at the helm of the sport.
It is time the managers of the sport, on the one hand, and the managers of athletes, on the other, grew up and stopped these petty squabbles that tend to bring the entire sport into disrepute.
We have had enough of the Martha Bissah rigmarole and call for cool heads to prevail in this matter, no matter the young girl’s crime.
We think the onus lies on the GOC/GAA to resolve this matter urgently, at whatever cost, before a superior body intervenes to save Martha’s future and that of Ghana athletics.
