The Olympic Games is not a lottery, in other words it is not a game of chance. It is for sportsmen and sportswomen who have trained seriously over the years and they shall be honoured with medals.

I have attended four Olympic Games, twice as an active sports journalist covering the Games for Ghana’s biggest national newspaper The Daily Graphic and two times as Press Attache for the Ghana Olympic team. I have experienced life both at the press centre and the Olympic Village and I can say with a fair amount of authority that there are two categories of sportsmen and sportswomen who make it to the Olympics. There are those who aim for medals and those who believe in the adage of just taking part for its fun.

It is difficult to surmise that Ghana belongs to the second category but if after proudly winning silver 48 years ago at the Rome Olympics in 1960,Ghana can only contend with three bronze in 10 subsequent Olympics the nation could easily fall into the category of those who only add to the numbers.

It may not be a fair categorization because I know for a fact that on several occasions enough preparations had been made towards these quadrennial Games. Series of high profile national trials had been organized. There had been a number of foreign training stints especially for the athletes and boxers and the then Ghana Olympic Committee had been in the forefront organizing national fund raising events with catchy slogans to whip up national enthusiasm.

The 1988 Seoul Olympics, the 1992 Barcelona Games and Atlanta 1996 for example had massive national support and even though the inspiring slogan of "Give Ghana Gold, Get Ghana There" could not yield any medals there was some sort of national awareness that the Olympics were near and Ghana would be there.

But what did we see this year. The pre-season athletics trials were turned into unnecessary acrimony and exchange of words among sports officials with mushroom radio stations stoking the embers with provocative comments. My verdict is that the token team of three track and field performers Ghana picked for the Beijing Games was definitely the result of lack of corporation among officialdom with the Olympic Committee looking on seemingly unconcerned.

Sprinter Aziz Zakari’s early exit was predictable. You could sense that the two year ban for drug abuse has taken some sting out of the young man. Much was however expected from lone lady sprints queen Vida Anim but the obvious lack of technical guidance sapped her energy as the competition progressed and she fell at the quarter stage of the 100m event. The usually large entries for the sprints means that there could be as many as three heats in a day and one would have to pace oneself with a technique for survival. Vida was handicapped in this respect.

She clocked 11.47 secs for second place in the first heats and showed much more improvement in the second round clocking 11.32 secs to place third.. This fast pace might have sapped her energy and she actually placed last in the semis with a rather slow time of 11.5 secs.

Frustrated Vida was heard on BBC blaming Ghanaian officials for lack of financial support for her and threatening to boycott the 200m. It is unfortunate that she has joined the acrimony brewing in the athletics fold. It is hoped some higher authority will step in and stop the rot before it becomes cancerous. It is the feeling in sporting circles that the Olympic Committee has overstayed its welcome and should be revamped immediately after the Beijing Games to inject more dynamism in the Olympic family.

Many observers believe that if the Olympic Committee had been more purposeful the six amateur boxers who had gone through hectic African qualifying series under their unsung Cuban Coach Roberto Ibamez would have fared better than they did. A critical observation was that the boxers appeared to lack stamina. The Cuban Coach should also be made to provide answers why his boxers were all fighting like professionals always aiming for the kill with heavy wild swinging punches. I don’t share the view that light-heavyweight Bastie Samir’s third round knock-out win over Nigeria’s Dauda Izobo might have sent wrong signals to his colleagues to go in for the kill.

It is worth noting that all the early losers, Bantamweight Issa Samir, featheweight Prince Octopus Djanie, light-welterweight Sam Kotey Neequaye and middleweight Ahmed Sasraku all believed in hard hitting. Native intelligence needs to be applied at times. When Bastie Samir’s aggressive style failed to help in the second fight against Washington Silva of Brazil one thought light-flyweight Manyo Plange would take a cue in his fight against another Brazilian .Paulo Carvallo and fight for points instead of the short route but he committed the same blunder.

By the third round the Brazilian had piled enough points 17-12 to inch for victory. No amount of Manyo Plange’s aggression in the final round could save him and the Brazilian had five more points against two by the Ghanaian to earn a comfortable 21-12 victory.to complete the elimination of Ghanaian boxers from the Games.

The Daily Graphic Correspondent in Beijing described Manyo Plange’s loss as "the most decisive defeat of any of the Ghanaian boxers in the Games". I hope this is not going to be a forerunner of many more scathing reports about our boxers to the Games. I will mount a one man crusade to stop such worn out post mortems on the performance of Ghanaian sportsmen and sportswomen after every major international competition.

I submit that the low publicity given to the boxers and athletes prior to the Games must continue. Let them mourn their sad exit in tranquility. The pet topic of a coach for the senior national football team Black Stars must go on unabated especially now that another Serbian has been named.

In the meantime those docile sports officials who are feeling so comfortable in their seats and are turning back the wheels of progress in Ghana sports must be prepared to face the wrath of the sporting public sooner than later. They must be told in plain language that the Olympic Games and for that matter all international competitions are not lotteries and we must prepare fully to make our presence felt. The huge stadiums in the cities must be put to other uses. They are not for football alone.