{"id":464864,"date":"2018-02-16T11:18:04","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T11:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2018\/02\/16\/winter-olympics-2018-last-place-but-akwasi-frimpong-feels-like-a-gold-medallist\/"},"modified":"2018-02-16T11:18:04","modified_gmt":"2018-02-16T11:18:04","slug":"winter-olympics-2018-last-place-but-akwasi-frimpong-feels-like-a-gold-medallist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/02\/16\/winter-olympics-2018-last-place-but-akwasi-frimpong-feels-like-a-gold-medallist\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Olympics 2018: Last place but Akwasi Frimpong &#8216;feels like a gold medallist&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"medsection1\">\n<!-- End of html generated by this->header() --><\/p>\n<p class=\"floatLeft\">Sports News of Friday, 16 February 2018<\/p>\n<p class=\"floatRight\"><strong>Source: <\/strong>AFP<\/p>\n<p>2018-02-16<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-left\">\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/55814231.295.jpg\" alt=\"Akwasi Frimpong N\" title=\"Akwasi Frimpong N\" width=\"295\" height=\"368\" \/><span class=\"image_caption\"><span>Akwasi Frimpong finished last in his Olympic debut<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"noPrint\">\n<div id=\"537626303\" style=\"width:300;height:250;margin:0;padding:0\">\n<p>\t\t  <noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" name=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" src=\"http:\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/afr?auid=537626303&amp;cb=151125817929577\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\"><a href=\"\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/rc?cs=b2ad7fa7fd&amp;cb=151125817929577\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/1518779884_358_ai\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"clear:right\">Ghana&#8217;s Akwasi Frimpong finished last in his Olympic debut but was a smash-hit nonetheless with his plucky efforts in the crackpot sliding sport of skeleton on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The 32-year-old, who spent two years selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door to finance his unlikely journey to Pyeongchang, now can&#8217;t wait to take a deserved break and go lie on a beach.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m going to take my wife on vacation,&#8221; Frimpong told AFP.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know where yet, but somewhere warm &#8212; I want the sun and the sand. Hopefully I can surprise her by taking her somewhere like Hawaii. Or maybe the Dominican Republic, where we went on honeymoon.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Despite freezing temperatures Frimpong has lit up the Olympic skeleton competition.<\/p>\n<p>He trailed home in 30th position &#8212; over 11 seconds behind eventual winner Yun Sung-bin of South Korea after his third and final run &#8212; but still felt like a champion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I came last but the most important thing is that I won the hearts of the people,&#8221; said Frimpong, who previously failed to qualify for the Olympics as a sprinter and in bobsleigh.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Olympic experience was awesome. I&#8217;ve never been in a place where so many people are cheering you on,&#8221; he added after becoming only the second athlete from Ghana to compete at a Winter Games.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You feel like you&#8217;re a gold medallist, that&#8217;s how they make you feel each run. It&#8217;s incredible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Frimpong smiled sheepishly when asked what it feels like to throw oneself off an icy mountain head-first at 125kph (77mph) on what looks, to the casual observer at least, like a glorified baking tray.<\/p>\n<p><b> &#8216;Little bit crazy&#8217;<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You definitely have to be a little bit crazy,&#8221; he laughed. &#8220;But it&#8217;s also about chasing the unknown. You gotta try something different &#8212; life is all about trial and error.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Watched by his wife Erica and their 10-month-old daughter Ashanti, Frimpong&#8217;s appearance triggered a huge roar from Korean fans, as well as a vocal, flag-waving group of supporters from his native Ghana.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was such an emotional moment for me because I remember in July 2015 my wife told me she didn&#8217;t want me to be 99 years old and still chasing my Olympic dream,&#8221; said Frimpong, who moved to the Netherlands when he was just eight.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My wife wanted me to go after it and without her support and her pushing me, doing two, three jobs while she was pregnant, I wouldn&#8217;t be here today.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Before following in the footsteps of Ghana&#8217;s &#8220;Snow Leopard&#8221; Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, who competed in slalom skiing at the 2010 Vancouver Games, Frimpong struggled to convince sponsors he was serious about skeleton.<\/p>\n<p>But after becoming one of the biggest stars of the Pyeongchang Olympics, adrenaline junkie Frimpong already craves more.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I still have a lot to improve on,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I came last but it doesn&#8217;t matter. I&#8217;ve only been doing it for a year and a half.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The rest of the world doesn&#8217;t understand the work you have to do behind the scenes,&#8221; added Frimpong.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But I know what it takes to get here and I&#8217;m just really eager and excited for the next four years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!-- uploaded by: 55 updated by: -1 --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Start of html generated by this->footer() -->\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a style=\"display:none\" rel=\"follow\" href=\"http:\/\/megatheme.ir\/\" title=\"\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633\">\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sports News of Friday, 16 February 2018 Source: AFP 2018-02-16 Akwasi Frimpong finished last in his Olympic debut Ghana&#8217;s Akwasi Frimpong finished last in his Olympic debut but was a smash-hit nonetheless with his plucky efforts in the crackpot sliding sport of skeleton on Friday. The 32-year-old, who spent two years selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":464584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-464864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}