By GARY LEMKE in Accra
Another six codes arrived at Team SA headquarters at the University of Ghana, to boost the number of sports to 10 and athletes to 90.
Table tennis, badminton, karate and women’s cricket have all had time to acclimatise to the stifling conditions and in fact table tennis is into its second day of competition on Wednesday. It’s the men’s and women’s team competitions – featuring groups of four – and Team SA is expected to punch a deep hole in the draw in both.
In fact, Team SA’s women’s No1, Danisha Patel, is confident that they will win a medal. They come up against Angola in their first match on Wednesday and Patel says that they are full of confidence after getting the better of their opponents the last time they met.
Table tennis is the only sport that takes place on Wednesday, but Team SA now have a rising contingent as opening ceremony day on Friday looms.
On Tuesday it was the turn of cycling, swimming, chess, beach volleyball, weightlifting and wrestling to arrive in Accra and while most of Team SA is a mixture of experience and youth, largely owing to the fact that these Games were held over from 2023 to March 2024. Many of South Africa’s athletes with Olympic aspirations need to compete at their own sport’s Nationals in April and are therefore not in Ghana.
In total Team SA will be represented by over 200 athletes across 18 different sporting codes.
Photo by Roger Sedres in Accra