African Games: Ghana’s 68 medal record by far the largest in history

Ghana recorded its highest medal haul at any international sports competition, following an outstanding display by the country’s athletes at the recently held 13th African Games in Accra.

The over two-week event which took place in the Ghanaian capital hosted 52 countries from the continent and saw 30 sporting disciplines competed for at the games.

Apart from the women’s football event, which took place in Cape Coast, all other disciplines were held in Accra.

Wrestling, tennis, cycling, athletics, swimming, badminton, table tennis, tennis triathlon, volleyball, football, Rugby, hockey, boxing, Arm Wrestling, Handball, Judo, Mixed Martial Art, and basketball among others were the various sporting disciplines.

Meanwhile, eight (8) of the disciplines such as wrestling, tennis, cycling, athletics, swimming, badminton, table tennis, and triathlon served as qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

After the long-week sporting event that ended on Saturday, March 23, Team Ghana occupied a respectable sixth position on the compe­tition’s medal table with a total of 68. That consists of 19 gold, 29 silver, and 20 bronze.

That feat was made possible by the arm-wrestling team that won 41 medals out of the 68 to add to medals won by Abeiku Jackson in swimming, Winn­ifred Ntumi in women’s weightlift­ing and Evans Yamoah Cadman as well as Rose Yeboah’s gold in the high jump category.

Just to mention a few, Paul Amoah clinched gold in the 200m category while the Black Princesses and the Black Satellites also won gold to complement the historical feat.

Abubakar Kamoko, the son of retired Ghanaian boxer Bukom Banku added his name in the history-making by securing a silver medal, surpassing his father’s achievements from 25 years ago.

Among the gold medalists were Mohammed Aryeetey in the Men’s 48Kg, Mohammed Amadu in the Men’s Bantamweight (54kg), Joseph Commey in Men’s 60kg, and Samuel Takyi in the Light Welterweight (63.5Kg) category.

With the feat, Ghana surpassed its previous highest overall medal tally (27) in the history of the African Games. The previous record of [27 – 7 gold, 7 silver, and 13 bronze] was achieved during the 1973 edition hosted in Nigeria.

It means the record medal haul for Ghana at the 2023 African Games is by far the largest haul in the nation’s history at this prestigious event.

Egypt, however, topped the table with 99 gold, 46 silver, and 42 bronze, totaling 187 medals followed by Nigeria with 121 medals consisting of 47 gold, 33 silver, and 41 bronze medals, and South Africa in third with 32 gold, 32 silver and 42 bronze medals, totaling 106 medals.

Algeria and Tunisia complete the top five countries on the medal table with 114 and 96 total medals each.

Top 10 countries in the medal table