The Ghana Olympic story so far

The 2016 Olympic games just ended and Ghana came home with no medal at all.

This is because we were all witnesses to the successes and failures; the feats and mediocre of the competing countries.

The Usain Bolts and others as usual shone like night stars and brought not only honour to their countries, but joy to their millions of fans across the globe. But Ghana comes home unidentified; as if we were never there.

Even though we taut ourselves as being among the best in football, we could not come anywhere near qualifying for the Olympic football tournament.

Ghana’s Olympic record has been nothing to talk about. It only goes to show the extent to which we do not value the benefits we could have otherwise got from the games.

There are thousands of young people in Ghana today with various sporting abilities who sit and waste because we have not cultured the needed environment for their development. And so people who could have brought us athletic laurels are just sitting and adding to the desperate unemployment situation in Ghana.

First of all, there is lack of vision on the part of our politicians who most likely do not have any strategic development agenda for the various sports and our participation in the Olympic Games.

This lack of vision is seen through the kind of appointments we make to our institutions, in this case the Ghana Olympic Committee. Instead of looking for self motivated, gifted and visionary personalities to fill the top management positions, our governments over the years resort to appointing cronies and friends who may just not be right for the job.

Usian Bolt is an ordinary black man like any of our young folk. Probably we could find some one in Ghana who could surpass his skill. These gifts go waste because there are no efforts to fish for or groom them to pick the world stage. Even if something is being done it is mediocre and it is better not to waste time and resources on it. And so we go in circles; waste the taxpayer’s money on an excuse for training and put together teams that would go out there and get lost like a drop of water in the ocean.

As it stands, it is very possible that Ghana may cease to be represented at all at the games because the system keeps on failing such that not only would we completely wipe away the desire in the next generation from ever aspiring to be sports personalities.

I believe it is time for a revolution in sports with an eye on developing the games such that the youth may take advantage of.

The eastern African states have succeeded in developing long distance runners such that they always top the gold list and are even exported to compete for other nations. The youth of this country deserve to be assisted in bringing out the qualities in them and I believe our leaders owe them the needed leadership to bring it to pass.

There is nothing so glorious like the whole world meeting at a stadium and ones national anthem played because one won a gold medal.

We need to take the Olympic Games more seriously.

By Alexander Nyarko Yeboah

Source: GNA