BEIJING (NEXSTAR) — Akwasi Frimpong was a winter olympian four years ago in the PyeongChang winter games, but in 2022 he will not be competing in Beijing.
“It has been a great impact on myself, personally, but also on the people around me; family, and the people in Africa as well,” says Frimpong. “There are smaller nations that have started their own federations because they saw me in PyeongChang.”
Frimpong defied the odds. A converted sprinter, he ran track at Utah Valley University. Although he’s only been a skeleton athlete for six years, Frimpong qualified for the 2018 games and was on pace to compete in the 2022 games until he tested positive for COVID-19.
“I had a little bit of a light, dry cough,” explains Frimpong. “I didn’t think it was anything too extreme. Then in the night, I had a high fever of 102 and I was sweating in my bed.”
Frimpong was forced to miss out on three qualifying races that would have moved him up in the world rankings. Instead, he found himself on the outside looking in.
“We had some great races in Lake Placid a couple of weeks before,” recounts Frimpong. “I had three races there. I had my best career results.”
He found himself just outside the top 60. Frimpong was 99th in the world when he participated in the PyeongChang games four years earlier, but with the International Olympic Committee no longer having a continental quota system, he was unable to participate in the races he needed to qualify for Beijing.
“It’s a sad day, but we hope that we can learn from it and at least to let people know the importance of inclusiveness,” Frimpong explains.