More athletes qualify for Rio
Ghana will make a strong representation in track and field events at next month’s summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro after the country’s female sprints quartet achieved the qualifying time for the Rio Games last Friday at the new Cape Coast Stadium.
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Last Friday, many of the Olympic Games hopefuls put up a strong showing at the Soga-Nana Memorial meet in Cape Coast to book their tickets to Rio. The meet, which served as a qualifying competition for the Olympics, also featured teams from Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Togo and the Ashanti Region.
The sprints quartet of Flings Owusu-Agyapong, Gemma Acheampong, Beatrice Gyaman and Janet Amponsah won the women’s 4x100m relay, setting a new national record of 42.67 seconds ahead of Cote d’Ivoire, Ashanti, Burkina Faso.
The four automatically qualify to represent Ghana in Rio, but the National Athletics Federation will decide whether to include two additional athletes to the relay team, as the 10c makes provision for a six-member team for the Games, Erasmus Kwaw, spokesperson for the federation, told the Graphic Sports yesterday.
Another qualifier was sprinter Emmanuel Dasor who won the men’s 200 metres race in a time of 20.49 seconds (Olympic qualifying time of 20.50sec) ahead of Martin Owusu Antwi (20.73) and Bright Tsitey (21.15).
Janet Amponsah qualified for the women’s 200 metres after running a personal best of 22.99 seconds (Olympic qualifying time is (23.20) to beat Ivorian Mireille Parfaite Gaha (23.60) and Agnes Abroquah (24.11).
Both Gemma Acheampong and Beatrice Gyaman lowered their 100m personal bests to 11.43 secs and 11.55 secs respectively but finished behind Ivorian Marie Ta Lou who won the short sprints in 11.22 secs.
Other Ghanaians who had qualified for the Olympic Games before last Friday’s meet were Flings (women’s 100m), John Amponsah (men’s javelin), Sean Safo-Antwi (men’s 100m) and Alex Amankwah (men’s 800m).
