On Sunday, team Ghana’s badminton player, Evans Yeboah, revealed that he and his teammates had to be transported on the back of their coach’s pick up truck from Tema to the competition venue in Borteyman in order to ensure they arrived on time for their match.

This is despite the Local Organizing Committee securing over 336 vehicles to serve transportation needs during the games, including transporting athletes to and from games.

But Yeboah says the incident was an emergency stop gap measure the coach was forced to resort to because their regular bus broke down on the way to convey the athletes.

“On that morning, the bus that they were using had broken down on the express way. So the coach in his own wisdom decided to bus them, as an interim measure, to bus them. By the end of the day, their regular bus schedule resumed and there was no problem,” he said.

“We have also gotten the players a top psychologist to work with them and I can say that emotionally they are okay now,” he said.

All of Ghana’s badminton players went on to exit the competition early on with no medals won.

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However, the off the court issues surrounding the team is what grabbed the headlines.

According to a member of the team, Leslie Addo, the team had to be transported to the Borteyman Sports Complex, using their coach’s pickup van. 

Due to limited space in the car for the players, about eight players had to perch in the bucket of the truck.

“We had to sit in our coach’s vehicle on our way here and it was a pickup,” he told Joy Sports. 

“Most of us had to sit in the bucket – about eight of us.

“We didn’t get any transport to the venue. We’re the host nation so how could that happen.”

Members of the team also complained about the late arrival of their playing equipment, with most of them unable to test the said equipment before the competition. 

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