It is a warm welcome for the youngster who won Ghana’s first Olympic medal in 29 years
A huge crowd of enthusiastic supporters of boxer Samuel Takyi has massed up at the Kotoko International Airpot to welcome home their hero who won bronze at the multi-sports event which ended recently.
The enthusiastic fans can be heard screaming and chanting the name of Takyi who has since the Olympics become a household name in Ghana.
Takyi is part of the second batch of Ghana’s contingent to arrive home after the first batch arrived earlier in the week.
It is a warm welcome for the youngster who won Ghana’s first Olympic medal in 29 years.
The 20-year-old Takyi defied all the odds at his debut Olympics, proving that there’s much more to come from this talented fighter.
He joins the pantheon of Ghanaian Olympic boxing greats Clement Quartey, a light welterweight who won silver in Rome in 1960, Eddie Blay a bronze light-welterweight medallist from Tokyo 1964 and Prince Amartey who made history in Munch 1972.
Team Ghana finished 10th on the African Medal Table and 86th overall as the 2020 Tokyo Olympics ended over the weekend.
The sole medal won by boxer Samuel Takyi proved to be the only medal that Team Ghana won at the multisport event.
For the first time in 29 years, the sport of boxing once again placed Ghana on the medal table after Samuel Takyi won bronze in the men’s featherweight division, having reached the semi-final stage.
The Ghana Olympic Committee and the various sporting federation heads had hoped Ghana would add to her medal haul but that was not to be.
The GOC will not focus attention on the next Olympics which takes place 3 years from now in Paris, France.
As far as Africa’s representation was concerned, it was Kenya that had the highest medal haul, bagging 10 medals ( 4 gold, 4 silver, and 2 bronze). They were followed by Uganda and South Africa who had 4 and 3 medals respectively.
Egypt and Ethiopia followed with 6 and 4 medals respectively but were ranked lower because they had more bronze medals than gold or silver.
Ghana sent 14 Ghanaian athletes to the games with some making positive strides in their respective sporting disciplines.
Team Ghana was represented in Athletics, Boxing, Judo, Swimming and Weightlifting.