National 100m record holder, Benjamin Azamati, failed to live up to the billing in the men’s 100m final on Tuesday, 19th March, 2024, at the University of Ghana sports stadium as the sprinter failed to win a medal in the men’s 100-meters race in the ongoing African games.
After a slow start in the 100m heats, despite clinching first position in a time of 10.54s, there were concerns about the Ghanaian sprinters performance, which he laid the blame on the weather conditions in Ghana
“Having been there since only Monday, at least I needed about two weeks to get used to the weather out here. So I think that was the problem. I got really tired when I was warming up, so I decided to just run the heat and just qualify.”
Nonetheless, Azamati managed to advance to the 100m final on Monday after finishing second in the semis with a time of 10.41s behind Cameroon’s Emmanuel Esseme, who won in a time of 10.23s.
Although Azamati improved his performance in the semis after moving from 10.54s in the heat to 10.41s in the semis, Ghanaians were still not satisfied with the performance as the 26-year-old sprinter was nowhere near his 9.90s national record.
The sprinter admitted that he did not have a perfect race in the semis as he got his execution wrong.
“Not a perfect race for me. I feel like I didn’t execute well, but I will go sit with my coach and talk about it. I had a little bit of a tight hip flexor. I think I will go back and see the physio to work on that and see how we can do tomorrow.”
Athletics is one of the disciplines Ghana was heavily fancied to clinch some medals, especially in the 100m. But the unfortunate happened as the entire nation was shell-shocked when Benjamin Azamati placed 5th in the final with a time of 10.45s, leaving him out of a guaranteed medal spot.
After the disappointing 100m final performance from the 26-year sprinter earlier in the day, Azamati managed to secure another final spot for Ghana in the 4x100m. He played a pivotal role in heat 3, running the second leg for Ghana, who managed to record the fastest time amongst all qualified nations in the 4x100m finals.(38.67s)
Benjamin Azamati and his compatriots will be hoping to repeat what the quartet of Sean Safo-Antwi, Benjamin Azamati, Martin Owusu-Antwi, and Joseph Amoah did to win gold in the men’s 4x100m relays at the African Games in Rabat, cruising to an impressive 38.30s finish ahead of Nigeria.
The honors lies on Benjamin Azamati, who is the leader of the 4x100m quartet, to put smiles on the faces of Ghanaians who have rendered enormous support for the athletes since day one.
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Story by: Rabbi Adu Agyei |univers.ug.edu.gh
