Athletics: GAAA Still Shooting Blanks!!!

The article ?Athletics body?ll brook no interference?, a communiqu? from the GAAA, makes it so obvious that the GAAA is back to its old tactic of blaming others for its impotence. In fact, the Chairman of the GAAA goes as far to indicate that, had the GAAA been allowed to keep its original roster of athletes to the Commonwealth Games, Ghana would have fared better. Sorry Mr. Chairman, but the GAAA does not seem to get it. By your comments, you have proved to everyone who has been following events over the past 10 months that the GAAA still does not comprehend the reasons for its failures. Weren?t the athletes you wanted to take to the Commonwealth Games the same ones you insistently took to the African Championships? Well, apart from the Commonwealth Games team members who proceeded to the African Championships and won one gold and two silvers, didn?t the rest of the very large team you took to Tunisia only manage one bronze medal in the women?s 4x100m relay? And is it not true that even that bronze medal came from a team that finished last in the race and who got the medal because all the other teams in the relay except two got disqualified? If this was the performance of your preferred team at the African Championships, are you really serious in your thinking that Ghana would have fared better in the more competitive Commonwealth Games? Where is the logic there?

In the same manner, we understand that in Manchester you opined, among other things, that our long jumper could have potentially medaled if you had been allowed to take her to the Commonwealth, even though the bronze medal went for 6.49 meters; in Tunisia, however her best jump, even though she had the strongest wind of the day behind her (4.5 m/s) was only 5.68 meters, putting her in 10th place (but you thought she could medal at the Commonwealth Games). Is wasting Ghana?s money the mandate you have given yourself as Chairman? The long jumper in question is a fine athlete and her fellow athletes believe that she has potential. Nevertheless, she is not ready for that level competition. The money spent on tickets would have been better spent on giving better training assistance/environment to ensure that she can be more competitive the next time around? This is a classic example of how officials can damage the reputation of potentially great athletes by trying to push them through as a favor even though he or she is not ready. You sent her there when she was not ready and despite the fact that she gave her best, she failed badly. When she is ready, we the athletes will be the first to advocate for her addition to the team. In the mean time, she needs better coaching and supporting resources.

It is amazing that the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Ghana Olympic Committee, and the National Sports Council have all publicly acknowledged their respective contributions to the errors that have sunk Ghana athletics so low. In classic fashion, however, the GAAA is the only entity that has failed to admit its responsibility for the mountain of debacles (minus outside interference) and continues to blame everyone else. Rather, they continue to point the finger of blame at everyone but themselves, in the process faulting the bold last minute remedying of the situation that involved overriding the association?s inappropriate selection. Here is a chairman, who after a year or so, if not more, in office still hasn?t taken the time to write a letter of introduction to the athletes he was appointed to serve. Please spare us the excuse that you inherited the problems. All the other notable officials i.e. Minister of Youth and Sports, Chief Executive of the National Sports Council and the President of the Ghana Olympic Committee inherited organizations with multiple problems too. The question is ?what have you done since your appointment to bring our wayward ship back to port?

The honorable Minister of Youth and Sports just recently acknowledged the Ministry?s mistakes in the article ?Minister of Sports's eye opener? and we commend him for the courage it took to admit these and also for stating his intention to rectify the situation. Let us wait for the results. In turn, the Chairman of the Ghana Olympic Committee met with representatives of the Ghana Athletes Association in Manchester and admitted that ?(w)e have let you down by staying too long on the sidelines.? He promised that the GOC will from now on take a more proactive stand and went on to agree to some of the requests of the representatives of the Ghana Athletes Association on specific issues pertinent to the athletes. Mr. Baba. Kudos

Remembers folks, any leader will tell you that it is not an easy thing to admit that you have failed. Nevertheless, it is the mark of potentially great leaders to accept fault when the organization that they lead makes a blunder and even more challenging, to come up with solutions acceptable to the party that has been wronged.

Recently, there have been speculations that the Acting Chief Executive is biased towards the athletes. Let us put an end to this. If anybody believes that Dr. Owusu-Ansah is off the ?frying pan?, then that person is grossly mistaken. He will be the first person to tell you that he is under scrutiny from all areas including the Ghana Athletes Association. NONE OF US, FROM THE MINISTER OF YOUTH AND SPORTS TO THE ATHLETES AND TO ALL ATHLETICS LOVING PEOPLE FROM GHANA, CAN REST WHILST THIS CANCER RAGES ON. The Minster has acknowledged this and has promise the necessary reforms. This is our country and our sport, and until we solve our problems, none of us can afford to feel secure. We pray that in constituting reform-oriented coalitions to tackle the various problems of Ghana sports, he will not forget to include the athletes, who can best articulate the problems from their perspective.

Mr. GAAA Chairman, both you and Dr. Owusu-Ansah have been in your new positions for roughly the same length of time. Yet, you have not presented the athletes with your vision about how best to solve our problems. In fact, despite all the turmoil that athletics has gone through this year, the GAAA has not initiated any formal communication with the Athletes Association. Do you want to tell us that Dr. Owusu-Ansah and the NSC also prevented you from laying out your vision (i.e. goals and objectives) to the athletes? Listen up to some free advice, Mr. Chairman. You are best advised to look within and STOP trying to blame the GAAA?s failures on ?interference?. The so-called interference actually attenuated the damage that the shabby original selections that you oversaw would have done. In other words, the ?interference mitigated the wasting of national resources. In your recent interview, you stated that "(i)t is the job of the association to choose or select athletes to represent the country in international competitions.? Permit us to ask, Mr. Chairman, but do you have a criteria for selection? If so, do you think you should share these with athletes so that they know what standard they have to attain in order to be selected? Is that too much to ask for? Should it or should it not be the best athletes the nation has that go to represent the country? It is amazing that, today, you claim that the impotency of the GAAA has been due to interference from ?above?. We disagree with you. Converse to your thinking, the ?interference? is a direct result of GAAA's impotence. You should have learned from the Commonwealth experience and presented a more streamlined team for the Africa Championships. Fielding the sort of team you wanted us to, only gets the whole country criticizing Ghanaian athletics. We need national support and to get this it would be useful for us to ALWAYS present the best team we have.

Now, let us explain to you why what you call ?interference?, that was a direct result of the work of the Ghana Athletes Association, actually worked to the benefit of the country:

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Is the Chief athletics coach not a member of the GAAA? If he is, then by extension, was this announcement below not made by the GAAA?

October 13th 2001, on Joy Online website. Article heading: “Ghana begins preparations for Commonwealth Games”. “The Chief Athletics coach explains that, in order to forestall the situation where foreign-based athletes mislead coaches about their performance, a strict monitoring would be done to ensure that selected athletes meet the qualifying mark at least three times before the games. Even before the final selection, both home based athletes and their overseas counterparts would undertake final trials either in Kumasi or a chosen venue next May, after which selected athletes would undergo a strict and compulsory fitness test before proceeding to Manchester.”

So, please tell us, Mr. GAAA Chairman, where has the association been? Before anybody gets happy and points to this quotation as proof that the GAAA had good plans for the coming year prior to the “interference”, read below see why this was simply a smokescreen to fool the public.

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January 23rd 2002, Accra Mail (newspaper) on the web. Volume 3 No 006 January 23, 2002. “Mr. S.S. Athuahene, Chief Coach of the team told the GNA Sports in Accra on Monday that two others, Margaret Simpson in Mauritius and Aziz Zakari in US have all been penciled to form the nucleus of the team. A source close GAAA hinted the GNA that officials are not keen on sending a very large contingent to the Commonwealth games and has thus settled on Anim, Aziz and Margaret.

Mr. Chairman, you chair an association that endorsed the selection of athletes in January, one week into a thirty-three plus week athletic season and more damming, twenty-six weeks before the Commonwealth Games. You claim to support local athletes but did you consider how they must have felt on the realization that a team had been penciled in even before the season was under way? Did Dr Owusu-Ansah force the association to make this hasty selection too? I will also prove to you, later, why the latter announcement actually partly vindicates Dr Owusu-Ansah’s later insistence on sending only five athletes to Manchester. Nevertheless, hold on Mr. Chairman, there is more against the GAAA.

In the same article from which the immediately prior quote was taken, the GAAA via Coach Atuahene, also announced that; “he was networking with officials of the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) and athletic associations in Europe to furnish him with the performances of the athletes”. We all know, at least those of us who deal with the IAAF that, the only way the IAAF aids with performance monitoring is via their world rankings list. Therefore, if the association had earlier stated that it would monitor performances via the IAAF how can you accuse Dr. Owusu-Ansah of being wrong for “depending solely on information technology, the internet to be precise, to select athletes for the games”? Perhaps let us enlighten you and most other officials on an aspect of the internet as a valuable resource that seems to elude many of our officials in Ghana. We all saw the effect of failure to verify the relative ranking of a Ghanaian weightlifter at the Commonwealth Games. Wake up Ghanaian officials; information technology, or simply the internet, can help avoid many shabby decisions and save Ghana a considerable bit of money!

It is true that any “Tom, Dick and Harry” can put information – whether right or wrong – on the internet. But it is also true that there are websites that are actually certified, from which any “Tom, Dick and Harry” knows that information found there are verifiable. Mr. Chairman, are you telling us that the GAAA cannot trust its parent organization, the IAAF to provide accurate information on performance?

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The website “www.tilastopaja.com” is another reputable source of valid information. We have on more than on one occasion given this address to the GAAA (SS Athuahene and others) and on numerous occasions made mention of it in articles. Again, these are the reasons. This website, is actually better than the IAAF’s website – in terms of current performances – due to the fact that results from almost all competitions around the world – if  listed on their calendar – are published on the site a day after the competition. It gets better. This site can provide you with information (performance results) that very few athletic associations around the world, including the GAAA, can give you on their own athletes. Believe us Mr. Chairman; it has more records on Ghanaian athletes than the GAAA has in its archives. Simple, type in the name of an athlete, hit “enter” and presto, it will give that athlete’s performance records for the past five years, and his or her performances in the current year. It even states his or her personal best, as well as their season’s best. Therefore, what Aziz Zakari has run today, should in the database by tomorrow. Any person can access his records to see his progression or regression over the course of any season. Thus, in the absence of national trials to select teams, how do you, Mr. Chairman, think you should select athletes to represent Ghana?

You also stated that “(i)t is time we swallowed our pride and negotiate with our neighboring countries to use their facilities to organize a national justifier to which will enable us to select the best among the lot before going for international games.” Sorry Mr. Chairman, but have you considered the logistical and financial nightmare that such an undertaking will require. This is such an amateurish suggestion! As an aside, the fact that you still retain the word “amateur” in the name of the GAAA is evidence of how far behind times the association is. Even the GAAA’s parent organization has changed name from International AMATEUR Athletic Federation to International ASSOCIATION of Athletic Federations in recognition of the fact that the sport that the GAAA governs is no longer an “amateur” one. As you heed this call to change your name, please understand that you can not simply drop the word “Amateur” (and one of the As in GAAA) because the Ghana Athletes Association has already claimed the acronym GAA (with two As). Returning to the preposterous idea that we hold our national championships in neighboring countries, you fail to appreciate that when events are held in one’s own country many significant miscellaneous costs borne by supportive entities remain obscured from cost/benefit calculations. In that regard, which Ghanaian companies would we approach to sponsor the championships when next year’s championships are held in Benin and the audience potential sponsors currently appeal to as a target population will not get the opportunity to see the event they would be sponsoring? This is only one reason why that idea is not worthwhile.

In addition, you made a very good point about the need to improve facilities in Ghana but in the absence of that, we suggest to you that for most events within athletics, the hosting of trials in neighboring countries will not guarantee better results than hosting in Accra or Kumasi. This is the reason why. “It is no different from suggesting that a student who has been deprived of a classroom, relevant textbooks and knowledge teachers/administrators will fair better on his or her final exam by taking it in a newly built luxury classroom.” Please, shackle that idea and let us focus on how to finance new facilities in Ghana. And if, as Chairman, you don’t think you can lead an effort to solicit funds, then you should yourself reconsider whether you are doing the athletes you profess to serve justice or injustice by hanging on to the Chairmanship.

Yet, before we start touting new facilities as the solution to our problems, let us remind you that the current system is rotten and as acknowledged by the Minister of Youth and Sports, things will have to change. We must not fool ourselves into thinking that the acquisition of new facilities will turn our local athletes into world champions. Again, with our current disorganized system, it is no different from saying that if you gave a brand new car e.g. a Ferrari to an average driver, he or she will become a Formula One race car driver. Even with new facilities, Ghana will not achieve much better results as a team/nation without major restructuring to our organizational approach.

That is, our potentially new “car” i.e. facilities will get us nowhere without competent and knowledgeable drivers. All the “leeches” must be first be removed and replaced with competent, knowledgeable and intuitive individuals who are up-to-date on their understanding of the sport and who are forward-thinking in their perspective and approach. Without that, no amount of money thrown our way or new facilities built in Ghana will solve our perennial failures as a team. A new paint/brush and canvas does not make one a better artist. Indeed, even with a stone and the ground for stationary, the work of a better artist will still carry the day.

Nobody, Mr. Chairman, is blaming the association alone for all our problems. However, the association has not been willing to admit to its numerous faults. How can the same association, that was cited back in January, “A source close to GAAA hinted the GNA that officials are not keen on sending a very large contingent to the Commonwealth games and has thus settled on Anim, Aziz and Margaret” now claim that Dr Owusu-Ansah tied their hands? Your association proposed to send three athletes even before the season started. The figure was changed to ten after public outrage. Dr Owusu-Ansah ended up insisting on five athletes. Is that not two more athletes than the GAAA had earlier intended to take?

I hope Ghanaians understand that we sent in the best team that we had to Manchester and accomplished almost exactly, what should have been expected based on the Commonwealth rankings immediately prior to the Games. In other words, the team lived up to the realistic expectations. Given the injuries to our top female sprinters, other than a couple more male sprinters for a relay team and a triple jumper (whose suspension for indiscipline still confounds us), there were NO other medal prospects for Ghana at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. We simply have to face that truth. It seems all, but the GAAA, knew exactly how we should fare. It is sad that as a nation, we seem to think that God loves us more than other countries. Therefore, irrespective of what the performance statistics indicate, our numerous blunders, lack of preparation and all the sacrifices made by our athletes, one medal for the five athletes we sent to Manchester was not good enough.

That is sad. But the truth is that had we sent 20 athletes to Manchester, we still would have come back with the same one medal. Which is better, to send in five athletes and win one medal or to send in twenty and still win one medal? Apart from the five athletes (other than Samuel Okantey and Christian Nsiah and the relay team) sent to Manchester, NO other Ghanaian was ranked higher than 20^th in their respective event. When the relay team was dropped, Eric Nkansah had not yet run 10.15 secs and Ghana was ranked greater than seventh in the 4 X 100 meters. Yet we the athletes fought to ensure that at least Nkansah was put back on the team. In the end, Nsiah’s generous offer to relinquish his spot put Nkansah back on the team. He (Nkansah) ran well, making it to the semifinal. He was one of the top 12 100 meter runners in the Commonwealth by his result at the Games, and yet he was not included in the selection selection, Mr. Chairman. Owusu finished an excellent 4^th in the triple jump and you wanted to drop him too. Aziz ranked 9^th in the 100 meters and finished 5^th in the 200 meters. We all know about Simpson’s medal. Given that the one female sprinter who represented us in Manchester sustained an injury in her race, how can anyone in their right mind consider this set of quality performances as constituting failure? You insisted on taking a larger team to the African Championships and did we fare any better? Even if you think we did, were the medals we won at this lower-level competition mostly won on the backs of the same athletes from the Commonwealth Games? The home-based medal in Tunisia was the women’s relay bronze and we all know how we ended up with that one.

You seem to suggest that the local athletes are at a disadvantage and were victimized by Ghana sending in only five athletes. Well we thought the goal here was to win medals not bring athletes to games for experience and holidays. The reality of the situation is that if an athlete cannot make it to the semi-final in major games, then given our scarce resources, he or she must not be sent to the Games unless we can afford it. This may sound harsh but that is the reality. Well, when you are paying with your own money, you can take whichever athletes you want. As long as it is the country’s resources that pay the bill, Ghana should be represented by the best athletes the country has. It’s as simple as that and it is your responsibility as Chairman to ensure that. You could have given up your own ticket if what you really wanted to do was expose some of the non-qualified “younger” athletes to such a major competition (we put “younger” in quotes because we all know how this same association has fiddled with the ages of athletes such that people who are advertised as young are not necessarily starlets). We are all supportive of giving athletes exposure. All we insist on is that there be some established criteria for effecting this. It can’t just be people who you happen to think can do this or that. The proof of the pudding is in the pie. Ghana has changed and none of us will permit the autocratic, one-man-show type selections that have characterized our past to continue. We give you our word on that. Democracy is the order of the day, not just in our politics, but also in our sport governance. We urge you to join the boat!

Rather than run up the national bill by taking all the athletes that you think, without substantive rationale, are deserving of travel, will the country not be better served by spending the same thousands of dollars that are typically wasted on travel tickets on setting up programs and systems back at home that will help make the same athletes you are keen on helping more competitive the next time around?

Some have advocated that the travel experience is vital for the growth of home based athletes. If that is so, then we should also let deputy ministers, deputy Chairmen, assistant/junior coaches etc. accompany national teams (in lieu of Chairmen, Ministers, etc.) for major championships since the experience will be valuable for their future growth. That assertion is a fallacy. This is not a jamboree, Mr. Chairman. It is a competition of the best athletes in the Commonwealth, in Africa, or in the World, depending on which Games we are talking about!

Finally, you state that “the nation could face sanctions from the AAC and IAAF the two main bodies that control athletics in Africa and the world respectively if the interference in the GAAA’s affairs does not stop”. For those who are not aware, the IAAF has already put a freeze on Ghana’s yearly grant. Its reasons for doing so have nothing to do with the so-called “interference” from above. Your GAAA will be hearing from them soon and you will realize that interference is the last of your concerns. The GAAA’s miscalculations and mismanagement of affairs have been well document by the IAAF and CAAA prior to you or Dr Owusu-Ansah’s rise to “power”. Our troubles and current state of turmoil did not appear overnight. For far too long, the GAAA answered to almost no one for its mistakes and miscalculations. Rather the GAAA blamed athletes for its problems. Do realize that this time around, nobody is blaming athletes for Ghana’s problems? Mr. Chairman, the athletes acknowledged their mistakes and cleaned their “house”. It is time to “clean” the GAAA. 

POSTSCRIPT: A number of articles have come out from various news outlets criticizing Ghana’s sending of 25 athletes and 29 officials (or was it 29 athletes and 25 officials). This has tainted the solid performance of the FIVE track and field athletes that Ghana took to Manchester. The main confounding problem here is that what most Ghanaians used to refer to as sportsmen/women are now referred to as athletes which, ironically, used to be the unique name of what we refer today as track and field representatives. Thus, instead of saying 29 sportsmen/women the reports talked about 29 athletes which made it seem as if our sport took 29 people there and only came back with one medal. We didn’t! We only took five people, although the GAAA Chairman wanted to make it a bigger party (ironically, it was the athletes who made the number reduce). For five people, the results were remarkably good. One medal, one 4^th place, one 5^th place, one 9^th place, one 12^th place, and one injury. As for the other 20 or 24 sportsmen/women, they were there for judo, weightlifting, badminton, and boxing. Those of us interested in track/field can’t really say anything about the other sports. We simply want to clarify this issue given the confusion that the confounding terms have provoked. Our track/field athletes association (GAA, not GAAA, which is the officials) has cleaned house and took steps to ensure that Ghana didn’t take athletes to Manchester simply for a party. Over to you, Mr. Chairman.