With barely two weeks until the start of the 13th African Games, Ghana Athletics is targeting a massive seven gold medal haul from the various events.

Ghana will be hosting the competition for the first time in its history and much is expected from the sportsmen and women who will be representing the nation in the various sporting disciplines.

Ghana is expected to enter athletes in both track and field events, which include 100, 200, 400 and 800 meters, as well as 1,500 and 5,000 meters. For the field events, Ghana will compete in long and high jump.

However there will be no representative for Ghana in field events such as discus, shot putt, and triple jump among others because the Ghanaian athletes failed to make the qualifying throw or jump.

President of Ghana Athletics, Bawa Fuseini who spoke to Luv Sports in Kumasi, said Ghana will present a total of 36 athletes made up of 18 males and 18 females who will be tasked to win for Ghana not less than seven gold medals.

“We set for ourselves a very stiff and challenging target, very ambitious. Our main target is gold, if we get the silver and bronze we will take it. But our main target is the ultimate, to go for the kill and we are aiming to get seven gold medals,” Fuseini stressed.

The GAA President says he’s self-assured that the athletes who will be representing the nation at the Africa Games will deliver on the set targets.

“I’m very confident with them, just last week one young athlete that we never thought would hit his peak so soon surprised all of us. We knew that he was good, he had the talent, he would come up but we never thought he would come up so quickly. He’s Solomon Dadzie and he just came up with 20.90secs in the 200 meters and this puts him in the lead in Africa this year.

"We’ve told the Ministry [of Sports] and LOC that in athletics our selection is based on performance and if athletes have another opportunity of competing we should just give them the opportunity so now we are not in a rush to submit our final list,” said Fuseini.