Swimming And Body Building Associations Call On SWAG

The president of the Ghana Swimming Association, Theo Wilson Edzie has appealed to the Sports Writers Association (SWAG) to consider his discipline in future awards as his young swimmers are doing very well and need some sort of motivation to perform better.

Speaking to Yours Truly ahead of the 44th MTN SWAG awards at the Accra International Conference Center on Saturday, May 11, 2019, he noted that the SWAG award is something that every sportsman and woman wish to win in Ghana.

He said the SWAG and its president, Kwabena Yeboah are held in high esteem and respected so anything they do is appreciated, however, he was sad that Ghanaian swimmer are performing very well yet they have not been recognized.

He said Ghana Swimming hauled over 30 medals at the West Africa competition last year and they have the best open sea performers.

He hinted that top swimmers Abeiku Jackson has broken the national record 12 times and did very well at the Commonwealth Youth Games in the Bahamas, the Youth Olympic Games in Argentina and Africa Youth Games in Algeria, all of which he was the captain of Team Ghana.

“Abeiku has done well and needs to be encouraged to be better. We need a SWAG award for our trophy cabinet” he expressed.

Walanyo Wallas aka Kululu PRO of the Ghana Body Building and Fitness Association has also come out to plead with SWAG to honour one of their top athletes who is the African champion. He said SWAG must honour all sportsmen and women who are champions.

But executives and members of SWAG are proud of expanding the awards to reach other sporting disciplines like kickboxing who produced world champions and armwrestling, the most vibrant fastest growing sports.

Vice President of SWAG Maurice Quansah says the sports media body is not obliged to honour all the over 40 disciplines in Ghana and explained that SWAG depends on sponsorship from sports-loving companies like MTN and Stanbic bank, but they can not recognize all, so they go with those who do extremely well at world level or distinguish exceptionally.

He revealed that SWAG awards started with three presentations in the early 1970s but now they reward over 30 sports personalities and organisations.

The Graphic Sports editor also appealed to corporate Ghana to support SWAG to honour more sportsmen. He also revealed that SWAG believes in quality performance and dislikes undisciplined sports people.

He said many things have changed with the format of the awards as the buffet dinner style has changed to theatre style which precedes with a cocktail.

He said now guests can relax and watch the stage shows comfortably adding that this time Samini and the ASA band will entertain. He said security is always best and congratulated all nominees and winners.