Mäder Becomes third Ghanaian athlete to compete at Winter Olympics

Mäder Becomes third Ghanaian athlete to compete at Winter Olympics

After skeleton racer Akwasi Frimpong’s chances of qualifying for a second consecutive Games were shattered by a positive COVID-19 test, alpine skier Carlos Mäder is likely to be Ghana’s solitary representative at the Winter Olympics here.

After Alpine skier Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong in Vancouver 2010 and Frimpong in Pyeongchang 2018, Mäder will be the third African athlete to compete in the Winter Olympics.

The 43-year-old will carry the flag of his country at the Opening Ceremony on Friday (February 4) before racing in the men’s giant slalom.

“So proud to start for Ghana at the Olympic giant slalom and so honoured to carry the flag at the Opening Ceremony,” Mäder wrote on Instagram.

“Was a long, hard but exciting journey over the past four-five years – very thankful that I could make all these amazing experiences and friendships for life, ‘big thanks’ to everybody that supported me on this way.”

Mäder was born in Ghana in 1978, but his single mother placed him for adoption as a child because she couldn’t afford to feed him.
He was adopted and raised by a Swiss family.

Mäder, on the other hand, has kept contact with his birth mother throughout his life and returns to the country where he was born on a regular basis.
He has been skiing since he was three years old and was also an excellent player who played for FC Lucerne’s youth team.

Mäder had set his eyes in 2017 on qualifying for the Winter Olympic Games to represent Ghana, but he just missed out on a spot in Pyeongchang 2018.
Frimpong was scheduled to run in a series of events in Germany last month to help him qualify for the Olympics, but he tested positive for COVID-19.

Brian McDonald and Zach Lund, his coaches, petitioned the International Olympic Committee and the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation to reinstate continental quota spots for Beijing 2022, but their last-ditch efforts were turned down.

The Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) has announced that a new gear for the Ghanaian delegation would be supplied to the Athletes’ Village in Beijing.

According to the GOC, President Ben Nunoo Mensah has clinched a kit sponsorship “through his business partners in China”.

By Geoff Berkeley