Ignisious Gaisah was Ghana’s surest best at International athletic meets. He guaranteed medals and was a legend in the sport. A long jump story cannot be written in this country without him.
In his heyday, he was the best. His senior career began in 2003 when he competed for Ghana at the All Africa Games in Abuja and crowned that performance with a gold medal.
To win gold in his first-ever senior competition for Ghana was a harbinger of what was to come for the man.
As an athlete, the determination and hard work that leads to success was Gaisah’s daily pursuit and representing Ghana in his early years for him was a great honour.
Gaisah won Silver in the Long Jump events at the World Championships in 2005, gold in the 2006 World Indoor Championships and the Africa Championships before clinching another gold medal in the same year at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. That year is arguably his best ever.
At the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Ignisious Gaisah was presented another challenge to overcome and he sure did rise to the occasion as he won Bronze in the Long Jump events in Delhi.
A year later, the All Africa Games stage was set in 2011, and he made sure he did not just make Ghana proud by competing in style after winning Silver in the Long Jump in Maputo
Winning did not just end there. Gaisah carried on in the Africa Championships in 2012 -Porto Novo, and won Bronze for Ghana before he decided to call it quits with the country.
With all the success he chalked, Gaisah did not have Olympic success. Ghana has never won a medal in track and field at the Olympic Games and in Gaisah’s years, it looked likely.
In 2007 however, he was faced with a setback. “….I remember in 2007 I had a career-threatening injury and in 2008 I completely went off competing. I should have listened to the advice the doctors gave me,” he told 3news.com.
Unbeknownst to Gaisah, the injury had gotten to alarming levels and he needed to sit out the sport to nurse it properly.
“I was told many times that I have to stay back from training. Stay back from competitions and treat my injury. But I didn’t listen to them, I always wanted to go out there and compete so I went out there to get some injections to heal it but it didn’t help me at all. So these are the stuff that I did that I feel like oh I should have listened to them. I wouldn’t have stayed home for three years,” he added.
That injury hit him hard. He could’ve gone to the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 and written his name in the history books as the first and only Ghanaian to have won an Olympic medal.
Now 40, Gaisah is channelling all that disappointment of the Olympic Games to training young athletes to perform at the competition. He hopes that one day maybe with this crop, an Olympic medalist will emerge.