‘Akwasi Frimpong needs support for Winter Olympics’

The Chef d’ Mission of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in South Korea, Jerry Ahmed Shaib, is calling for total support for Ghana’s sole athlete at the forthcoming competition, Akwasi Frimpong.

This, he said, would encourage him to excel as Ghana’s sole athlete to fly the flag of Ghana at the Winter Games which is scheduled to take place from February 9 25, 2018.

At a media briefing at the offices of the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC), Mr Shaib said even though skeleton is not a popular sport in the western part of Africa, Akwasi Frimpong qualified by meeting a required number of five races on three different ice tracks in two years, during which his first season he competed in 12 races on four different ice tracks namely Calgary, Utah, Lake Placid and Germany.

He noted that the athlete who is based in the United States, is currently, enjoying an Olympic scholarship to enable him to prepare for the games, as well as a monthly grant of $1,500 to cater for his training and coaching expenses.

Born on February 11, 1986, Akwasi Frimpong is a Dutch-Ghanaian sprinter, bobsledder and skeleton athlete and has eight medals representing four silver and four bronze respectively.

Describing Akwasi Frimpong as a good brand who the country ought to market, the President of the GOC, Ben Nunoo Mensah, said the athlete was among a few of the participating athletes from a non-snowy country but had been able to get that far.

Mr Nunoo Mensah mentioned ccorporate bodies such as Cocoa from Ghana, Binatone, Melcom Group, Samsung and Hyundai that he said had been supporting the GOC and its athletes and called on others to come aboard.