Sporting Witness
Sporting Witness
Ghana's runaway sprinters
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April 1, 2021
9 minutes
Available for over a year
In 1990, two of Ghana’s most talented sprinters, Gus Nketia and Laud Codjoe, escaped from their national team’s accommodation at the Commonwealth Games in Auckland. The pair had made friends in New Zealand and wanted to flee from a country with an increasingly repressive government. They were helped by an extended Maori family, who hid them in the New Zealand backcountry and helped them apply for citizenship. Gus Nketia later became the New Zealand record-holder at 100 metres. Tom Roseingrave reports. The programme is a Whistledown Production.
PHOTO: Gus Nketia (l) in the year 2000 (Getty Images)