By Bockarie Allieu
232News
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The Sierra Leone Athletics team for the All-Africa Games in Ghana Accra will arrive in Ghana on Tuesday 13th February with 12 athletes and one coach.
Before their departure on Tuesday, the technical team of the Athletics association on Wednesday 6th March 2024 presented a selected list of 12 athletes to the executive of the association.
According to the Technical Director of the association Harold Palmer, the 12 athletes were selected based on their performance in their various competitions and the training sessions.
Among the 12 athletes were 6 male and 6 female athletes. Harold though said there were plans to travel with more athletes but they cut down the number to 12 athletes based on the quota they received from the Ministry of Sports / NSA.
He was though optimistic that the 12 athletes were the best among the lot. Among them, they have 11 home base athletes and one foreign base athletes.
There was also plan to go with more foreign base athletes but he said they were having problems on how to get the passports for some of them in time before the deadline for the registration athletes.
Some of the invited foreign base athletes he said decline later due to immigration problems. Among the 12 selected athletes Abu Bakarr Conteh (Male) will represent Sierra Leone in the 10,000m & 5,000m, Katie Sesay (male) 1,500m & 800m, Lawrence Fidal Sesay (Male) 100m &200m, Dreck Kargbo (Kargbo) (Male) 400m & 200m, Mohamed B Bah (Male) 400m & 200m, Abu Bakarr Sesay (Male) 400m & 200m, Jane Kargbo (Female) 1,500m & 800m, Theresa Kargbo (Female) 10,000m & 5,0000m, Georgiana Sesay (Female) 200m & 400m, Marie Bangura (Female) 200m & 400m, Aminata B Kamara (Female) 200m & 100m and Hafisatu Sahid Kamara (Female) for 100m.
The All-Africa Games is an Olympic qualifier competition for Athletics and some few other sporting disciplines. But in his word of courage for athletes that were not selected the president of the Sierra Leone Athletics Association, Martin Bangura said the All Africa Games is just one of the qualifiers for the Olympic as they have other qualifiers and other international competitions.
He told the athletes not to lose hope but to continue training and be hopeful of making it to the next competitions. To those selected, he told them to behave as ambassadors and put Sierra Leone first while in Ghana.
Perform well, he told the athletes to win laurels for Sierra Leone so that the government will have more confidence in athletics to create more space for the other athletes.
On Thursday a 35 delegation including sports officials, coaches, athletes and the media arrived in Accra. Among them were 13 athletes, and four sports journalists join other members of the delegation who had arrived in Accra earlier. The Athletes and the officials are hosted at the Jean Nelson Hall Block B University of Ghana.
