The President of the Ghana Olympic Committee, Professor Francis Dodoo has said that experience from competition was behind Martha Bissah’s gold medal feat in the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China.
Bissah won the Women’s 800m in a time of 2.04.90 seconds to give Ghana her first Olympic gold medal of any kind and Prof. Dodoo explained that exposure from previous competitions helped Bissah to win the race on Sunday.
“What Martha did in China over the weekend was unbelievable. She ran a mature race and that came from the number of events she had ran in before then.
She went to the African Championships in Morocco where she lost to Ethiopia’s Hawi Alemu Negeri and finished third and before that, she was in Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games. Those events helped her development and she has made all of us very happy.
In hindsight, I am grateful that we took her to the Commonwealth Games and the African Championships for her to learn more,” Prof. Dodoo said in an interview with Citi Sports on Monday.
He continued:” I cannot wait to see her back home and give her a big hug. I hope the President of the land will also be happy to meet her.”
Professor Dodoo added that athletics in the country could achieve more if the sport was backed by stakeholders and the requisite funding.
Prof. Dodoo explained that the feat chalked by Bissah should remind the nation that the right infrastructure and support for the athletes can produce more champions in athletics in coming years.
” These young athletes we have really have a future in the sport and we should help them instead of castigating them. They still have a few years to develop before they can be world champions but we must be behind them.
We can do a lot of things here in Ghana for them but unfortunately, we lack a lot in terms of top equipment and coaching but we are trying to do something about it by sending them outside the country for education and the chance to develop themselves.
However, we still do need some more support if we are to do a lot.”
By: Nathan Quao/citifmonline.com/Ghana