‘State of Ghana athletics in good shape’, Bawa

General Secretary of the Ghana Athletics Association (GAA), Fuseini Bawa has promised of a good future for the sport after the staging of the junior athletics championships in Kumasi.

He has expressed satisfaction with the output of the whole exercise saying the level of performance was higher than what he anticipated.

The best talent from the championship has been selected to form the core of the junior national team and would be put through an intensive programme to prepare them for future tourneys.

Mr. Bawa said in an interview that the athletes selected would be put through the right pace for them to fully develop their potential.

“We intend to work with the Ghana Education Service (GES) to develop a plan that would ensure that the athletes continue with their studies in addition to their training programme”, he said.

This will include putting them in international competitions where they will come up against athletes from other countries and this should improve their output with time.

He added, “With the right programme line up, they should be able to face the best from the continent and beyond in future as Ghana seeks to regain her lost image on the international stage.

The first of those international events was to be the West Africa youth games in Benin later this year which has been postponed to a later date.

The Ashanti region dominated the junior championships which attracted a large crowd to the athletics oval of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi.

Martin Estey broke the 16 year old triple jump youth record with a leap of 16.10m with Appiah Kubi winning the 200m with a time of 21.47s.