Ghana’s 4x100m relay team continues to stumble with baton exchanges. It is a recurring problem that has cost the country dearly at major local and international tournaments, from the African Games to the Olympics and World Championships.
Despite the raw speed and talent our sprinters possess, the inability to smoothly pass the baton has often been the difference between a podium finish and early elimination.
At the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, our 4x100m team failed to finish their heat after a poor baton change between the second and third legs.
At the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, another faulty exchange led to disqualification. The same problem occurred again at the 2023 African Games in Accra, where a sloppy baton handoff ended Ghana’s medal hopes, this time in front of a home crowd.
Just last year, at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Ghana’s relay team, Abdul Rasheed Saminu, Benjamin Azamati, Ibrahim Fuseini, and Joseph Paul Amoah, recorded a time of 38.62 seconds in Heat 2 but were disqualified due to a baton exchange infringement.
The baton change curse reappeared during the 2025 World Championships qualification at the World Relays in Guangzhou on May 11, 2025. Although Ghana has qualified for the 2025 World Championship slated for Tokyo in September, their performance was marred by another faulty baton exchange.
The team, Barnabas Aggerh, Joseph Paul Amoah, Mustapha Bokpin, and Ibrahim Fuseini, managed to clock a season-best time but struggled with baton transitions, another reminder that the problem still needs fixing.
Relay success is not just about having fast runners. The baton change is a crucial part of the race that can make or break a team. A clean exchange saves time, but a poor one ruins everything. It requires precision, chemistry, and not just raw speed.
There is much to learn from the world’s best, particularly the United States and Jamaica, which consistently dominate the 4x100m relay. While our sprinters are among the fastest, we consistently fall short on baton exchanges, a challenge that countries like the U.S. and Jamaica have mastered through a combination of strategy, technique, and preparation.
Both the U.S. and Jamaica have highly structured training regimens, focused not just on speed but on perfecting baton exchanges.
The two countries have also maintained consistent relay teams over the years. They prioritise chemistry between runners, ensuring that baton exchanges become seamless and second nature.
This is the time for the Ministry of Sports and Recreation, as well as Ghana Athletics, to step in. Our athletes need more than encouragement and patriotism.
They need structured relay programmes, dedicated technical coaching, and regular international exposure. These are basic requirements if Ghana wants to stop making headlines for the wrong reasons.
It is no longer enough to simply pick our four fastest athletes and hope they click on the day. Ghana needs a long-term plan to build cohesion in the relay team, starting from the grassroots.
The repeated baton errors we witness are not about talent, they are about preparation, planning, and support.
The time has come for Ghana to fix this issue once and for all. We cannot afford to keep throwing away medals because of the same mistake.
With the right systems in place, our relay teams can reach their full potential on the world stage. But first, we must fix the baton. How many more chances must we waste before something changes?
