Athletics/Grace Ofori: The Super Athlete Of Ghana In The 1980s

Grace Ofori emerged as one of the top athletes in Ghana in the late 1980s when she was a student at Osei Kyeretwie Secondary School (OKESS) in Kumasi.  Some of her classmates at Okess were the current Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Bright Wireko Brobby (at 6th form), the Member of Parliament for Oforikrom in Kumasi, Dr. Emmanuel Marfo, the immediate past President of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), Prof. Charles Ofosu Marfo who lectures at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, a journalist Napoleon Ato Kittoe, the Manager of Asante Juaben Rural bank, Augustine Damoah and former Kumawood Actor, the late Bishop Bernard Nyarko. Most of her contemporary classmates at OKESS are currently spilled on the globe, Kumasi, Accra, North America, Europe, and Australia.

Grace Ofori hit her peak as a national athlete between 1987 and 1990 competing for OKESS during inter-schools and college sports competitions (INTERCO). On the tracks, some of her contemporaries were Doris Frema Wiredu, Veronica Bawuah, Martha Appiah, Emmanuel Tuffour, and Myles Mills. Those were the days when INTERCO was a major headline within schools and at the national level.  Late Bishop Bernard Nyarko nicknamed at the time Tuga, was also a field and track star. At the time, the greatest challenge to Okess in any sporting discipline was T.I Ahmadiyya Secondary School, AMASS. The INTERCO became the recruiting field for national athletes.

She was a specialist in 400 metres race and was firmly buoyed by her physique and athletic nature. Grace Ofori, who represented Ghana in Africa and the World at large, spotted powerful, slightly curvy legs that sprinted away from the rest of the field, bracing tapes at the end of the race in record time. She was easily spotted by the security services with the Customs, Excise, and Preventive Service (CEPS) outsmarting the other services to poach her after she exited OKESS. That was another fold that actuated the then-famous athlete of Ghana as the security services thrilled the fans across a variety of sporting disciplines in leagues.

After paying her dues to CEPS, she left the local scene for Canada where she has resided for the past 20 years or more. A native of Kumawu in the Ashanti region, Grace Ofori occasionally visits Ghana, especially Kumasi where urban life began.  Grace Ofori symbolizes the peak of Ghana’s sports in the late 1980s when Ghana sent strong contingents to All Africa Games and the Olympics and secured medals or coasted away and beyond the heats in the era of some of the globe’s top contenders such as Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson. The notable female track stars on the world stage included Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

Grace Ofori provided clues as to how to identify sports talents or lead one’s self to be counted. According to her, the prospective star ought to be self-motivated, take to a role model, eat healthy diets and subject themselves to anything between light and intensive training to assess their own stamina. Persons with good height could be given handball, volleyball, or netball. For track events, she urges the Ghanaian authorities to stage a recourse to inter-school sports, and brand it well to be attractive to the schools and for public patronage. She says since sports is an extracurricular activity in second-cycle schools, it should be easy to rekindle and ratchet it to the rafters as grooming grounds.