Disability is not inability, and Gilbert Ampiah has defied all odds to participate in sports, specifically high jump.
This 16-year-old physically-challenged boy, schooling at St. Augustine’s College, was seen in a video posted by 3Sports participating in high jump successfully, unlike his colleagues who had the bar falling off, signifying their failure and disqualification to the next stage.
“A lot of schools in the Central Region wanted to recruit me, but I wanted AUGUSCO. My headmaster in junior high recommended me to AUGUSCO’s sports master. They then scouted me, and they were pleased with what they saw, so they picked me,” Gilbert Ampiah told 3Sports.
Gilbert Ampiah achieved a personal best of 1.60m in 2023 during a competition with able-bodied children at Ekumfi Atwa.
At the inter-houses level, the physically-challenged high jumper set a new personal best of 1.82m.
Gilbert Ampiah is eyeing the Paralympics and hopes his dream of partaking in the high jump at that level materialises soon.
“AUGUSCO is one of the best schools in Ghana. They can help me get to the Paralympics,” he stated.
About high jump
The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors leap (unaided) from one foot over a four-metre-long horizontal bar, according to worldathletics.org.
It adds that athletes accelerate down the runway, take off on one foot, and aim to clear the greatest height without knocking the bar to the ground.
Once they’ve completed their jump, athletes land on a crash mat.
Each competitor has a maximum of three attempts per height. A jump is considered successful if the athlete clears the bar without dislodging it.
The height of the bar is raised in increments after each round of trials.
SA/AE
Meanwhile, watch this Ghana Month special edition of People and Places as we hear the story of how the head of Kwame Nkrumah’s bronze statue was returned after 43 years, below:
