The Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the Accra 2023 African Games is eyeing a fifth-place finish at the 13th edition of the continental multi-sport festival, next year.
Ghana placed a not-too-bad 20th and 15th out of 54 countries at the last two Games hosted by Congo (Brazzaville 2015) and Morocco (Rabat 2019) respectively.
Next year, the West African country is raring to go for a massive punch of 10 places above its weight, than it did the last time.
Executive Chairman of the Accra 2023 African Games, DrKwakuOfosu-Asare, said the LOC had promised the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to garner a decent number of medals that can guarantee the country a fifth position on the ladder.
“As one of our mandates, the President does not only want us to host, but host and perform creditably well on the medal table.
“We have promised the President we would improve on our previous performance – and we have gone ahead to challenge ourselves very high by saying that we will want to move to the fifth position,” he asserted in an exclusive interview with the Times Sports on Wednesday.
To be able to accomplish that feat, the Accra 2023 African Games Executive Chairman said his outfit would ensure that “we select a very formidable team to represent Ghana.”
“That is what we are working on as LOC members and we are trying as much as possible to ensure that we will be able to achieve that objective.”
According to him, a lot of effort and resources would be pumped into disciplines that the nation holds aggressive advantage in, so as to realise its objectives.
“We are going to focus on these areas where we have competitive advantage; boxing, athletics, weightlifting, swimming, judo and karate.
“Everyone talks about football, but there are other good areas like weightlifting that can win more medals for the nation.”
It is recalled that weightlifting alone grabbed eight of the 12 medals clinched by Ghana at the last African Games in Rabat.
Dr Ofosu-Asare said regrettably, Ghana and the global world was going through financial challenges; but remained strong-minded in LOC’s pursuit to draw out the needed financial support “to galvanise areas where we have competitive advantage.”
He stressed that the LOC was working sizably with the federation heads to assemble a formidable contingent for the Accra 2023 Games – calling on Ghanaians to support the campaign vigorously.
BY JOHN VIGAH
