{"id":378012,"date":"2017-11-27T13:01:54","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T13:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=378012"},"modified":"2017-11-27T12:05:31","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T12:05:31","slug":"akwasi-frimpong-setting-fire-to-ice-on-the-way-to-pyeonchang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/11\/akwasi-frimpong-setting-fire-to-ice-on-the-way-to-pyeonchang\/","title":{"rendered":"Akwasi Frimpong: Setting fire to ice on the way to Pyeonchang"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ghana and Winter Olympics are two words that are rarely found together in any sporting conversation but perhaps that is about to change.<\/p>\n

31-year old Akwasi Frimpong has started a journey that he hopes will take him to PyeonChang and complete a process that has been ongoing for 5 years.<\/p>\n

In 2012, he was part of the Dutch pre-Olympic sprint team but a tendon injury ruled him out of the Games in London.<\/p>\n

But what do you do when you cannot run in the sunshine? Forget about your dream and try to live your life? That may be the answer for other athletes but for Akwasi Frimpong, he decided to compete in the snow.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got the opportunity to be part of the Dutch bobsled team and I was the brakeman, the guy at the back of the bobsled who had the speed,\u201d he told Citi Sports in an interview from his training base in Utah.<\/p>\n

(Bobsled or bobsleigh is a sport which requires a team to be in a bobslep; a capsule-like device which zooms around a track at amazing speeds.)<\/p>\n

The pace developed on the running track was going to be put to good use.<\/p>\n

However, he could not go to the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia and it was time to think about school and books in the United States.<\/p>\n

But after advice from one of his coaches, he decided to take up the skeleton event. The event is a single-athlete sport in which the competitor has to lie face down on a board and race down a track at a great speed.<\/p>\n

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\"Akwasi<\/a>Akwasi Frimpong (left) with another competitor (Image credit: Akwasi Frimpong\u2019s Facebook page)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It seems speed and Akwasi Frimpong have always had a lifelong relationship.<\/p>\n

At age 15, he met athletics and he liked it. That was 7 years after he arrived in Amsterdam with his parents from Ghana.<\/p>\n

Now, he is hoping to blow past opponents and clocks on his way to the Winter Games.<\/p>\n

Headline stuff, isn\u2019t it? But that too is not new to Frimpong.<\/p>\n

After all, his mother made the newspaper front pages and top chart positions from her many wonderful gospel songs in Ghana<\/p>\n

His mother? Yes. The very popular Esther Amoako, who gave Ghanaians songs like \u201d Keep On Praying\u201d, \u201cHe Can Do It\u201d, \u201cHe Is Alive\u201d and \u201cMetrimupo\u201d.<\/p>\n

The motivational and inspirational fuel that is primordial for his journey seems covered on that score but Frimpong knows that getting to South Korea will require more than heavenly intervention.<\/p>\n

He recognises the work he has to put in and he is getting all the help needed to send him to the big time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may be a one-man sport but I have a team that is helping me. I have different coaches dealing with different things. For instance, I have a sliding coach who is taking me through the work of navigating the sled around the course.<\/p>\n