Ghana looks to revive sprinting culture Joseph Paul Amoah was virtually unknown in Ghanaian athletic circles before he was dubbed ‘Ghana’s fastest human’. Now he’s the new face of sprinting in a country looking to transform its running culture.
“It’s been an instant shot to fame,” said the 19-year-old from the central Ashanti region, after reportedly clocking an impressive winning time of 10.08 seconds in the 100m.
In early September, 160 runners from four qualifying competitions held across Ghana converged on the country’s second city Kumasi to participate in the race, set up by former Olympian Reks Brobby.
In 2013, Brobby founded Ghana’s Fastest Human (GFH), an annual 100-metre competition designed to unearth the country’s best sprinting talent with the hope of boosting future track success.
At stake was a one-year intensive training programme for the top two men and two women, sponsored by sportswear giant Adidas and the state-run Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).
On offer: supervision from a nutritionist, a sports psychologist, a muscle-trigger specialist and four premier sprinting coaches.
Brobby, who competed for Ghana’s 4x100m relay team at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, finishing fifth in their semi-final, hopes the programme will help put Ghana’s sprinters back on the athletics map.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, Ghana had a consistent presence at international sprinting competitions throughout Africa with runners such as Michael Ahey, George Daniels, Hannah Afriyie and Alice Annum, but the pool of talent began to stagnate.
“I want to make (running) sexy again so that Ghanaians will start dominating the world by Tokyo 2020 and beyond,” stated Brobby, rather ambitiously.
But he might not have to wait until the next Olympics to see results.
The 2013 GFH winners, Emmanuel Dasor and Beatrice Gyaman, both ran in Rio in August (200m and 4x100m respectively).
And even though they failed to secure any medals, it took them only three years to go from promising local talents to appearing on the international stage.