Team Ghana managed to grab six medals and placed fifth on the medal table at the just ended 1st Ghana Open International Championship held at the D.G Hathramani Hall of the Accra Sports stadium.
The female team had a total of two silver and two bronze medals while the male team also got a silver and bronze at the end of the competition.
The two-day championship brought together over 10 countries to the D.G Hathramani Sports Hall at the Accra Sports Stadium in the nation’s capital.
Cote d’Ivoire finished first on the medal table with a total of 16 medals. They won seven gold, two silver and seven bronze medals followed by Niger also with 16 medals but with five gold, three silver and eight bronze medals.
Mali finished third with a total of five medals with three gold medals, a bronze and silver medal while Nigeria finished fourth with two medals – a gold and silver medal.
Best female team went to Cote d’Ivoire followed by Niger and Mali while the best male team also went to Niger followed by Cote d’Ivoire and Mali.
The overall best team was won by Cote d’Ivoire followed by Niger and Mali.
Ghana had a total of nine bouts and out of the nine bouts, two female athletes, Kerzia Gbedze in the -46kg lost her semi-final bout against Bouma Coulibaly of Cote d’Ivoire while Mercy Asantewa also lost her final bout in the -63 against Tekiatl Benjessouf of Niger.
The other seven male athletes had Albert Yarney losing in the preliminaries against Iddrissa Amadou of Burkina Faso, in the -63kg category while George Barnes was defeated by Benin’s Denakpo Ignan.
In the same Category, another Ghanaian athlete, Edmund Segbena lost to Karim Ouedogo of Burkina Faso whereas Stephen Kwabena was defeated by Cote d’Ivoire’s Sodiki Imao.
In the -74kg, Gerald Sarfo was at the mercy of Abdul Aziz of Niger but Ahmed Sam made it past the prelims after defeating Benin’s Nagife Alaja. He however failed to progress to the semi-final as he lost to Michael Atande of Burkina Faso.
Ghana’s only athlete, Addo Benson Kwesi who made it to the finals of the -54kg, could only manage Silver after he lost to Amadout Moharama of Niger.
Addo, who was full of hopes as he was used as one of the faces for the championships, began well defeating Souleymana of Niger in the last eight before going pass Komlaie Pierre of Burkina Faso.
The Championship saw many dignitaries including NSA boss – Robert Sarfo Mensah, President of the Ghana Taekwondo Federation – Frederick Lartey Otu, President of GOC – Ben Nunoo Mensah present.
It was organised by the Ghana Taekwondo Federation under the auspices of the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the National Sports Authority with support from Puma Energy, Epsilon Security, Accra City Hotel, Big Tanko Ltd and the Korean Embassy