African Games 2023: Ghana records highest medal haul in history

Ghana has recorded her largest medal haul in the history of the African Games at the 13th edition of the event that ended in Accra at the weekend.

African Games 2023, marked the first time Ghana was hosting the Games, hauling a total of 68 medals- 19 gold, 29 silver and 20 bronze- the largest in the history of the nation.

This marks the nation’s most successful participation since the Games’ inception in 1965, surpassing its previous best of 27 medals attained during the 1973 Games in Lagos, Nigeria.

With the nation waiting for success to begin the celebrations, Winnifred Ntumi delivered the first medal in weightlifting to kick off Ghana’s historic haul.

Ghana’s most popular sport, football made history with both male and female teams winning gold at stake in their respective categories over three weeks.

In other team sports, the female hockey team also took home gold. In an unprecedented performance, arm-wrestling took the Games by storm with eight gold medals.

Boxing also stepped up to take its place in the history of the Games with four gold medals, where Samuel Takyi, Ghana’s sole Olympic medalist in Tokyo, and Joseph Commey, a recent Commonwealth Games medalist delivered yet again.

One area that pulled the most crowd and attention and got rewarded for its resilience was athletics. With fans filling every space at every event, the athletes put on a show, claiming three gold medals spectacularly.

Ghana, hosting the highest number of disciplines since the inception of the Games finished sixth out of 53 participating nations, marking a significant improvement from her 15th position in the 2019 Rabat edition, where the team returned with 13 medals.

Similarly, the African Games 2023 hosted three disciplines more than the Rabat event of 26 disciplines. Until the Rabat event, host countries had been averaging 20 disciplines.

The just-ended edition brought together 5000 elite athletes and coaches from 54 African countries in 29 multi-sports disciplines over three weeks.

The event held over two cities; Accra and Cape Coast was used as an official qualifier for the XXXIII Olympic Games Paris 2024. The Olympic qualifying events comprised athletes, swimming, cycling, badminton, wrestling, tennis, table tennis and triathlon.