Akwasi Frimpong urges youth to develop talents in other sports
Ghana’s sole representative at the 2018 Winter Olympics, Akwasi Frimpong, has urged the youth of Ghana to challenge themselves by identifying and developing other talents, aside football and athletics.
Akwasi Frimpong said he was at the Winter Games to make history as the first skeleton athlete ever for Ghana with the hope that more kids in the country would look up to him and come out from their comfort zones with new talents, aside of football or track and field events.
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“Sometimes, the terrain is not friendly enough but there are a lot of talents in Ghana and I encourage the youth to challenge themselves by using their talents in different sporting disciplines and not just football and athletics,” Frimpong indicated.
Speaking to the Graphic Sports from his base in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Akwasi Frimpong said he had a lot of belief in the youth of Ghana and promised to do his best to show to the world that Ghana could also take part in a skeleton sport.
“I am doing the skeleton for just two years, others have done it for five to 18 years and so it would be very difficult to win a medal because that will mean I have to engage in a lot of training but I will do my best to compete with them.
Describing the opening ceremony of the Games as a great experience and an avenue to market Ghana at the Winter Olympics and to the rest of the world, the 32-year-old athlete said: “Now the world knows Ghana is part of the Winter Olympics”.
Akwasi Frimpong said his main objective after starting the Bobsled Scouting Federation in 2016 in Ghana was to go to the 2020 Olympics and win a medal for Ghana.
He said he continued to nurture that dream, the first of which is to break barriers to show that people from a warm country in Africa and, for that matter Ghana, could do the winter sport.
Akwasi Frimpong said, this year’s Winter Olympics is also to enable him to gain experience to win a medal at the 2022 Olympics.
Frimpong expressed appreciation to all Ghanaians, the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) and its sponsors, particularly Cocoa from Ghana, for their overwhelming support, which he said, gives him extra energy.
The coach of Frimpong, Lauri Bausch, lauded the efforts of Frimpong and said he had come a long way.
She, however, acknowledged the difficulty in aiming higher in the skeleton sport but said: “Frimpong has made a major progress which he can improve upon during the 2022 Games.”
Frimpong, who finished his first heat with a time of 53.97 seconds and the second run in a time of 54.46 seconds to finish 30th out of 30 athletes on both occasions yesterday, is out of the medal zone in the men’s skeleton competition.
Akwasi Frimpong will be hoping for a better outing today when the competition concludes with two more runs.
South Korea's Yun Sung-Bin is currently leading by 0.74 seconds, with a total time of 1 minute 40.35 seconds after two runs.
