GOC President worried over Olympic outing

Accra, Aug. 24, GNA – Professor Francis Dodoo, President of the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) has expressed gross worry about Ghana’s ordinary performance at the recent London 2012 Olympic Games.
Team Ghana, represented by nine athletes returned home from the 30th edition of the quadrennial games empty, but Prof. Dodoo maintains that the athletes did not underperform.
Addressing a press briefing on Ghana’s performance at the games, he blamed the team’s failure on several factors, notable among them finance, administrative and ill-preparation.
He revealed that his outfit was confronted with a challenge of delay in the release of funds which really affected their plans for the games.
“We are not happy with the zero gold, zero silver and zero bronze performance of our team,” he said.
The GOC President, a former Olympian outlined that authorities must focus on sports development, a system he said helped Ghana in the 60’s as the first step towards improving on our performance at major competitions.
“Ghana embarked on a serious sports development campaign where experts were flown down in the country to organize courses for our coaches. Because other countries were not doing same, the Alice Anum’s and co excelled. Their victories, no doubt were predicated on development.
“Corporate bodies love to sponsor events rather than developing the sport, and that is what we are considering by engaging stakeholders to bring sports development back.
“I admit the fact that inter-college sports activities have taken a nosedive and one way of bringing it back is to embark on a massive education to sensitize people of the dangers of lack of sporting activities to schools and the nation as a whole,” he added.
He advised that funds for sporting activities should be released on time, saying “When monies are given on time, you get good return for the money.”
Prof. Dodoo concluded that another way to improve on sports development is the ranking of sports discipline, which is outfit is seriously considering.