Former Ghana Table Tennis star Isaac Opoku popularly known as ‘Asawa’ has disclosed that he was a bit nervous when competing at the 1996 Olympic Games.
Opoku competed at the 1996 Summer Olympics in the men’s singles and also played in the doubles with Winfred Addy.
The eight-time national champion in an interview on Happy Sports special segment to relive some memories of former Ghanaian athletes titled “Where are they” shared his experience representing Ghana at the Games.
“I was scared when I first went to the Olympic games in 1996 but I had to be strong because as an athlete coming from Ghana I have been through a lot which made me stronger”, he told Ohene-Bampoe Brenya on Happy 98.9FM.
He also urged every Ghanaian athlete to target competing at the Olympic Games.
“The Olympic games village is like heaven that everyone will love to be there. You won’t even want to comeback if you go there but there’s a lot of politics in our sports”
Opoku said lack of motivation has hindered a lot of Table tennis players from competing at the highest level reason why Ghana has been overtaken by other countries such as Nigeria and Egypt in the sport.
“I feel sad Ghana was retrogressed over the years unlike Nigeria which can boost of more than 300 professionals. Our players can compete if they play with the experience players reason why we are not performing lately”.
He added that he is contributing his quota to also help in the development of the sport.
Asawa won the National Table Tennis Championship for eight times, winning six in a row. He also won the Eastern Regional Championship on 12 occasions.
