NEW YORK : Trailblazing Ghanaian skeleton athlete Akwasi Frimpong hopes to open doors for more Africans in winter sports, as he eyes one last trip to the Olympics next year before calling time on his career.
The 39-year-old broke barriers in 2018 when he and Nigerian Simidele Adeagbo became the first African skeleton racers to compete at an Olympics, and kicks off his fifth World Championships in Lake Placid from Thursday.
“I don’t want to be the first and the last,” he told Reuters. “I’m doing everything that I can to push myself for one more Olympic Games, to continue that narrative, and with the hope that others are listening and watching and that we don’t close that door when I’m done.”
He reached the 2018 Games thanks in part to a continental quota programme. That system was not in place four years later and he missed qualifying after contracting COVID-19 in the run-up to Beijing.
While he has a good chance of qualifying based on ranking for the Milano Cortina Games next year, he fears that without a continental quota programme in the future, other African athletes could be discouraged from even attempting the sport.
“I’ve come in at a time in my life right now where it’s all about the next generation, and I’m doing everything that I can to lay a path out there,” said Frimpong, who in 2020 became the first skeleton athlete from Africa to win an elite race.
“It’s going to be really tough for us to keep Africa in the sport. And that’s something that I’m very sad about.”
Frimpong hopes to improve upon his best world championships result of 28th last year despite missing the first half of the season recovering from foot surgery. He plans to retire after the 2026 Games.
He put up a handful of solid results over the last two months, including an 11th-place finish at the North American Cup in Park City in January.
“I feel like I’ve done decent, but I know I can do much better,” he said, estimating that he was at around 80-85 per cent strength. “I’m not quite there where I wanted to be at. But it’s important to be patient.”
