Team Ghana in a jubilant mood. INSET: Officials applauding team Nigeria
The National Armwrestling team, Golden Arms, on Saturday emerged the overall winners of the 12th edition of the Africa Armwrestling Championship in Accra.
The team made a record of winning 132 medals after the two-day competition held at the GNAT Hall.
After two days of left and right arm battles, Ghana finished first with 47 gold medals, 55 silver medals and 30 bronze medals to accumulate 1,088 points.
The Pharoahs from Egypt came second with 25 gold medals, four silver medals with no bronze, making a total point of 282, while Ghana’s archrivals in sports, Nigeria came third with 10 gold medals, nine silver medals and 14 bronze medals.
Over 100 Pullers from 14 countries battled in Junior, Youth, Senior, Master, and Disabled divisions for both men and women in a total of 50 bodyweight categories.
Beyond the competition itself, the championship held great significance as the qualifying event for the highly anticipated 2023 Africa Games and the World Combat Games, scheduled to take place in Saudi Arabia.
Ghana’s Grace Mintah won for herself a ticket to the World Combat Games to be held in Riyad, Saudi Arabia while Nigerian athletes Mauzi Zaanu in the 55kg class defeated Ghana’s Rachael Lankai in a playoff battle for the World Combat Sports Games.
Olubisi Oyewusi had earlier qualified for the World Combat Games in the Women’s 90kg Class, after beating Ghana’s Alberta Ampomah.
Ghana, having successfully hosted the Africa Armwrestling Championship in 2018, was privileged to host this prestigious event for the second time.
Ghana won a total of 45 medals to finish third at the 11th Africa Armwrestling Championships when Lagos hosted it.
The Ghanaian team came home with 18 gold medals, 22 silver and five bronze medals to finish behind hosts Nigeria (27 gold medals) and Egypt (24 gold medals).
From The Sports Desk