Ghana sweep awards …At Africa Zone 3 table tennis championship

Ghana's National Table Tennis youth team, comprising four young boys and a girl, won a historic 4 Gold, 1 Silver and 2 Bronze medals at the African Table Tennis Federation Zone III (Laurent Gbagbo) Table Tennis Championship, held in Abidjan, La Cote d'Ivoire, from July 22 to 26, 2009.

Ghana's team comprised Cynthia Kwabi, Derek Abrefa, Felix Lartey (all U-18 players and trainees of GIS), Samuel Akayade (U-15 player) of Koforidua Secondary Technical and Isaac Davies (U-15 player) from Cape Coast Catholic Jubilee School.

Coach Anthony Owusu Ansah was the Technical Head. The team was led by Mr. Kwame Amponfi Jnr, the Secretary General of the Ghana Table Tennis Association who is also the Vice President of the Africa Table Tennis Federation Zone III.

The 4 Gold Medals were won in the U-15 male singles by Samuel Akayade, Under-18 male singles by Derek Abrefa, Under-18 male team comprising Derek Abrefa and Samuel Akayade and Under-18 mixed doubles composed of Cynthia Kwabi and Derek Abrefa.

The Silver was won in the U-18 female singles by Cynthia Kwabi while the 2 Bronze medals came from the U-15 male team made up of Isaac Davies and Samuel Akayade, and then also in the U-15 singles by Isaac Davies.

Team Ghana won a total of 7 medals. In all, six countries participated in the African championship. They included Cote D'Ivoire (host), Burkina Faso, Ghana, Benin, Congo Brazzaville and Togo.

Team Ghana was sponsored by the National Sports Council, the Ministry of Youth & Sports and TV3 Network Limited.

It is the hope of the Association that, with this remarkable achievements, individual philanthropist, companies and Ghana as a nation would see table tennis as a sport worth investing in and that, the team would be given deserving winning bonuses for their historic achievement as done for other sporting disciplines.