Ghana wins first Olympic medal

Ghana won her first Olympic medal courtesy light-welterweight Ike Quartey’s silver in the boxing division at the Rome Olympics in 1960.

Ike was outpointed by Bohimil Nemeck of Czechoslovakia in the final but he gave such a plucky display that most ringsiders' thought he deserved the gold.

Top sports journalist Donald Saunders writing in the British newspaper Daily Telegraph said a large section of the vast crowd which occupied every one of the 15,000 seats at the Palazzo Delo Sport clearly thought he had done enough to win.

Team manager Jack Roy said; "I thought Ike had won. He was landing more punches with the knuckle part of the glove. If the judges carry on like this, they will turn boxing into a sport for street fighters". Coach Roy Ankrah echoed similar sentiments and said "if they want street fighters here, the Ghana boys can give it to them because so many of them fight just for the love of it".

On his way to the final, Ike outpointed the awkward Moroccan opponent. Mohammed Boubakar who had defeated Khalid of Iraq in a tough encounter and outclassed Kim Duck of Korea to reach the medal zone

Ike reached the final when he luckily had a walk over Poland’s Manain Kaspryzyk. The Pole was unable to fight because of an eye injury sustained during his victory over Russian Olympic champion Vladimir Engibaryan in the semi finals.

The five remaining Ghanaian boxers Cassis Aryee,Joshua Wilson,Eddie Blay,Joseph Lartey and Alhassan Brimah could not survive the preliminaries.

Bantamweight Joshua Wilson turned out to be too heavy for the weight. He had to move to featherweight and featherweight Eddie Blay had to go up to the lightweight class.

Eddie Blay won his first fight against Gualberts Gultierrez of Uruguay but lost the next fight against Kick McTaggart of Scotland.

Dick dominated the bout keeping Blay at bay with his copybook right.Blay tried to bustle his way through Dick’s guard and earned a warning from the referee for using his head.

Welterweight Joseph Lartey also won his first fight against Lar Bergstrom of Sweden lost the next encounter.

Featherweight Joseph Wilson was out-pointed by Constantine Ghergiu of Romania.

Bantamweight Cassis Aryee lost to Japanese university student Krysochi Tonaba. The referee stopped the bout several times to warn Aryee for leaning on his opponent and this cost him points.

Middleweight Alhassan Brimah was knocked out in 1 min 45 secs of the first round by Boris Lagutin of the Soviet Union.

In track and field Gustav Ntiforo 100m, J.A.Antwi, 400m and F.A Owusu 800m dropped out in the heats.

Gustav Ntiforo finished fourth in his 100m heats in 11 secs; M.F.Okantey survived the 200m fourth heats in 21.8 secs and Police Corporal F.A. Owusu placed fifth in the 800m first heats in 1 min 55.2 secs. The 4 x 400m relay quartet of William Quartey, J.A.Addy, F.A.Owusu, J.A.Antwi clocked 3 mins 10.5 secs to place seond to the USA in the 4th heats before dropping out at the next stage.

Bob Kotei placed 10th in the high jump with 6ft 7.8 in