SWAG President Calls For Full Preparation For National Athletes Ahead Of 13th African Games

Mr. Kwabena Yeboah, President of the Sports Writers Association Of Ghana (SWAG) has appealed to the Ministries of Youth & Sports and Finance to ensure that there are adequate funds to aid the various athletes who are going to represent Ghana at the up coming 13th African Games.

Speaking at the induction of the newly elected executive he noted that apart from football which the state invests much resources, there are the other disciplines who also need sustenance to prepare well and win medals for the nation.

According to the SWAG President it would not be nice for Ghana to host and Ghanaian athletes just participate without winning medals.

He expressed that the other disciplines are constantly crying for help and they also carry the responsibility of showcasing talent in the country, but had scanty resources from the state.

He appealed for a little fraction of resources from the state to support the other disciplines, like boxing, athletics, taekwondo, judo, arm wrestling and others.

Mr. Kwabena Yeboah noted the the slow pace of developing infrastructure for the Games must be accelerated.

He said over 24 disciplines will be competing at the Games and Ghanaians can not afford to embrace themselves at the Games with few medal as the cream dela cream of athletes from the continent and over the world will be coming to what is termed as the Olympic Games of Africa, so the Ministry of Finance must make available resources for the infrastructure development to be rapid and preparation of the teams to be top notch.

55 African countries are expected to participate at the Games, with over 3,500 elite athletes and officials, over 3,000 technical officials, journalists and global celebrates as well as over 5.5 billion online audiences.

Athletics, Badminton, Cycling, Swimming, Tennis, Table Tennis, Triathlon and Wrestling are disciplines that are going to serve as qualifiers for Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

The Demonstration Sports are E-Sports, Mixed Martial Arts, Pickleball, Scrabble, Speedball, Sambo and Teqball.

Non-Olympic Qualifiers include Arm Wrestling, Basketball 3×3, Beach Volleyball, Boxing, Cricket, Football, Handball, Hockey, Judo, Karate Do, Rugby, Taekwodo Olympics-Upgrade, Volleyball and Weightlifting.

The 13th African Games comes off from 8th to 23rd March, 2023 in Accra.

Source: Sammy Heywood Okine