After eight years in the wilderness Ghana was at the Los Angeles Olympics with contestants for boxing and athletics.

The athletics contingent was made up of Cynthia Quartey, Doris Frema Wiredu, Grace Armah, Mary Mensah.Sprints relay; Martha Appiah,200m, 400m; Grace Bakari 400m,800m; Francis Dodoo,long jump; Collins Mensah100m,4x100m; Ernest Obeng 100m, Philip Attipoe 100m, 4x100m; James Idun 200m; Charles Moses 400m; Wilson Amakye 800m;Makarious Djan 4x400m; Rex Brobbey 4x100m; Fred Kwasi Owusu 400m.

None of the athletes could enter the medal zone.

Phillip Attipoe placed fourth in the 100m first heats in 10.6 secs but crashed out in the second round placing seventh in 10.78 secs.

Collins Mensah was fifth and thus eliminated in his 100m heats in10.92 secs

The men’s sprints relay team of Phillip Attipoe, Makarious Djan, Collins Mensah and Rex Brobbey survived two rounds. The squad placed fourth in 40.20 secs in the first round but crashed out in the next round placing sixth in 40.1 secs

Francis Dodoo jumped 51 01/4m failing to make the qualifying mark of 54.5 m in the triple jump.

Grace Bakari placed 8th in the 800m heats in 2min 14.5 secs and Doris Frema Wiredu was 6th in the 100m heats in 11.85 secs.

Athletes Ernest Obeng and Fred Kwasi Owusu had their entries withdrawn by the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) on the eve of the athletics competition for what officials described as gross indiscipline and lack of patriotism.

UK based Obeng and US based Owusu should have run in the 100m and 400m respectively. However their entries were withdrawn by the GOC which felt the behaviour of the athletes was too unbecoming to justify their stay in camp.

The two were reported to have left camp without permission and stayed out for days. In the case of Obeng he didn’t even attend the traditional Olympic flag raising ceremony and when asked to run in the 100m relay he flatly refused. Not even the intervention of the Secretary for Youth and Sports Amarkai Amarteifio could make him change his mind

Obeng later told reporters that no rule existed that an athlete should ask permission to go out from the Games Village and no curfew was established by any official. He alleged that the action taken against him was the result of “personal hatred”

In boxing apart from lightweight Douglas Odame all our boxers lost their first fights.

Odame gained a third round technical knock-out win over D. Kossi of Central African Republic in his first fight. The referee stopped the fight in the second minute of the third round. He however lost the second fight against Jose Antonio Hermando after putting up a courageous display.

Light flyweight Ebo Danquah was out-pointed by Yehuda Ber Hain of Israel

Bantamweight Aaron Neequaye lost clearly on points to Ndaba Dube of Zimbabawe

Featherweight Christian Kpakpo was beaten by Kenyan skipper John Wanjau

Light-heavyweight Taju Akay was stopped in the third round by Evander Holyfield of the USA. The referee stopped the one sided affair to save the UK based Ghanaian from further punishment.