Ghana men’s relay team since 2004 had not qualified to the Olympic games
Ghana’s 4x100M Men relay team have said all they want is adequate support as they begin preparations for the 2020 Olympic games in Tokyo.
Team Ghana booked a ticket to the Olympic games after finishing second at the World Relay Championship in Poland on Saturday and have revealed how much of a support they will need from the country.
“We are not expecting them to do the greatest of things for us. We understand Ghana is a soccer nation, we know America is a football nation, although they put a lot of money into football, they still support track and field.
“So we are not expecting Ghana to give us all the money, we know soccer is our first game and we love it but can we atleast get some support? It just clear, look at the margin, we just heard about some $25 million and ask yourself how much we were given. We are not asking for $25 million but show us that you love us and support us. That will motivate us,” they said in an interview with 3Sports.
According to the four athletes: Benjamin Azamati, Joseph Amoah, Sean Safo-Antwi and Joseph Oduro Manu, competing at the Olympics is a lifelong dream but they will need support to be successful in Tokyo
“It has been a lifelong dream to compete at the Olympics but we still need the support. Once we don’t get the support, we don’t believe the country is behind us.
“I don’t want to compare but there are certain things put in place for other sporting disciplines but when it comes to us, we don’t really get that support.
“I think there is a thing of they choosing another sport over us, but clearly we are doing well, if they put us together to train for long, we will put up some great performances, it is about time they do certain things for us and they know what they have to do, they know the necessary things they have to do for us to perform better, so it is about time they do all that for us and we will perform better,” they told 3Sports.
They added “We are running for Ghana and we are in our school gears, we are representing a country and we are in our school gears, we don’t have a training camp, the teams we are competing with set up training camps.
“For like weeks, months and we have to compete with them on the same level, and you see how challenging it will be for us compared to them and we still trying to make the times right, to get to the show, so these are some of the challenges we go through as a team but we still have to represent the country because Ghana is our motherland and there is nowhere for us to run.”