African Games 2023: Swimming falls short of medal; all Ghana’s wrestlers eliminated

Ghana finished Day 1 of the swimming competition with two 4th place finishes in the men’s 100m freestyle and the 4x100m mixed relay freestyle. 

Ghana’s Stacey Harry finished 4th in the finals of the men’s 100m butterfly, narrowly missing out on a medal. 

South Africa’s Clayton Jimmie grabbed the gold with a dominant display, with Namibia’s Alexander Skinner and Egypt’s Abdalla Nasr finishing second and third respectively. 

Ghana’s swimming team coach, Pavel Kutashev, was however impressed by his team’s outing.

“It was a good day. It wasn’t perfect, when you consider we had two 4th places, but a good day overall, he told Joy Sports.

“The bottom line is that the athletes gave everything, and that’s what makes me happy,” he added.

There was more gloom for Team Ghana in wrestling, with all Ghanaian wrestlers eliminated on the first day of competition.

The biggest defeat came in the men’s greco 77kg category, where Ghana’s Mugis Salifu lasted less than 2 minutes in the first round before being overpowered by his Kenyan opponent Mathonya Mathayo 10-0. 

Badminton provided very little good news, with Ghana’s only surviving men’s doubles team of Leslie Addo and Ebenezer Korampong suffering a painful quarterfinal loss to South Africa’s Jarred Elliott and Robert Summers to close out a very disappointing day for the team. 

Ghana saw no mixed doubles or women’s doubles teams progress past the Round 16 stage. 

Ghana was also dumped out of all singles events on the day, with no Ghanaian progressing past the round 16.