2022 Commonwealth Games: Ghana’s lows and highs
The 2022 Commonwealth games began with hope for all participants. The 22nd edition of the games provided a platform for experienced athletes to shine and new faces to announce their names to the world.
On 28th July 2022, the much-anticipated event began in Birmingham and promised to have 12 action-packed days with athletes from Ghana, England, Wales, Scotland, Australia, Jamaica, Nigeria, Canada and more.
Ghana entered the Games hungry for medals after winning just one in the 2018 edition held in Gold Coast, Australia.
The Ghana Athletics Association submitted an astonishing total of 193 athletes to the organizers of the games, who duly noted the names of all athletes on their website.
The list included star athletes Benjamin Azamati, Joseph Paul Amoah and Jessie Lartey, who won Ghana’s only medal in 2018.
Ghana started poorly in beach volleyball and hockey where they recorded heavy defeats against Canada, England and India.
There was also little success in some other disciplines including beach volleyball, badminton, squash and cycling.
But the nation made headway in boxing, winning three medals thanks to the efforts of Joseph Commey (silver), Abraham Mensah (silver) and Abdul Omar (bronze) in different divisions.
Deborah Acquah performed admirably in the long jump, setting a national record with a leap of 6.94m to clinch bronze.
Joseph Paul Amoah also made history on the tracks, winning bronze in the 200m final with an impressive time of 20.49s. His medal was Ghana’s first in the 200m event at the games since George Daniels did it in 1974.
But, Ghana’s biggest disappointment was the disqualification for the 4*100m relay team for not informing organisers of a change in running order at least one hour before the race began.
In the end, Ghana improved on the medals they earned as compared to that of 2018, winning five.
At the end of the medal standings, the nation placed 28th and 173 medals shy of Australia who placed first on the table. The best performing African was Nigeria who placed 7th with 35 medals.
With the 2023 African games coming up the following year, Ghana will look to groom enough talents to sweep more medals on home soil.
source:3news
