Four Athletes Win Seven Gold Medals In US

Four Ghanaian junior athletes won seven gold medals at the United States Junior College National Championship in New York at the weekend. The quartet, Agnes Abu, Elizabeth Dadzie, Lydia Mato and Janet Amponsah smashed records on their way to making impact at first attempt. Dadzie and Mato crowned it by winning the best overall field athlete and best overall track athlete awards respectively. Sprint queen, Amponsah also put down a national indoor record of 23.81s, enroute to her blowout victory. Long jump sensation, Dadzie stunned US college athletics observers with a dramatic win in the Women's Pentathlon, despite sub-par performances at the beginning of the five events. After an average performance of 10.53m in the shot put, she roared to the lead with a massive jump of 6.23m; her best ever and Ghana�s furthest since 2011 before capping off the pentathlon with a 2:30.68 800m run. Hours after her splendid performance, Dadzie returned to pick up silver in the individual long jump event, missing the title by two centimeters and silver as well in the triple jump.. Mato blitzed a quality field that included two Kenyans and an Ethiopian to win gold in the women�s 3000m and 5000m races respectively in the first day of the competition before securing her third individual award on the second day, winning the women�s one mile event. Meanwhile, Abu won the women�s 800m, before winning 1000 meters hours on while Amponsah set the new national indoor record of 23.81secs to win gold in the women�s 200m, having secured a silver medal in the 60m final, where she ran the same time as the winner, but lost out on the photo-finish. She claimed a third medal as part of the 4x400m silver medal team. Amponsah�s time of 23.81 secs broke Monica Twum�s 13-year-old record set as a student at Texas Christian University. The competition also saw several strong performances from other Ghanaian athletes: Adelaide Nkrumah won a bronze medal in the women�s 600m race, while Daniel Gyasi picked up silver as part of the men�s 4x400m team.