The Ghana Cycling Federation (GCF), in partnership with the African Cycling Network Satellite, has donated four Sports Racing bikes to the Ghana Prisons Service, formally launching an initiative to build cycling teams within the country’s security services.
The donation, led by Ghana Cycling Federation Secretary General, Shaaban Mohammed, is intended as the opening move in a broader campaign to establish a security services cycling structure in Ghana that can eventually compete at African and world level.
Speaking at the donation, Mohammed explained that Ghana currently has no dedicated security services cycling team, despite such competitions being a regular fixture elsewhere in Africa and around the world.
Security services games are organised annually on the continent, he said, but Ghana has so far only sent officials to observe rather than compete.
Ghana is involved in all aspects of sports, and cycling is not supposed to be excluded,” Mohammed said, describing the donation as the start of a deliberate push to bring the Ghana Prisons Service, Ghana Police Service and Ghana Armed Forces into organised cycling competition.
According to Shaaban Mohammed, the federation identified prospective riders within the Prisons Service after encountering a group of officers cycling alongside professional riders during an event in Legon tied to Parkinson’s disease awareness.
He said several of the officers were already covering distances of 40 to 50 miles on their own initiative, which convinced the federation there was a talent base worth developing.
He added that giving Ghana’s security services a structured pathway into competitive cycling could also serve as a recruitment incentive, drawing young people who take up serious training toward eventual careers in the services.
“If the youth are not being taken care of, we don’t have a future country.”Shaaban Mohammed, Secretary General, Ghana Cycling Federation
Receiving the Sports Racing Bikes, Deputy Director of Prisons Fiifi Dontoh, who oversees procurement, welcomed the gesture and said the service was already active in sports such as football, boxing and athletics.
He said cycling had until now been an informal activity among interested officers, and that the donation would allow the service to formalise training and build a team capable of competing both internally and, eventually, in national colours.
Shaaban Mohammed noted that the Ghana Police Service and Ghana Armed Forces are also in the process of forming cycling teams, but that the Prisons Service is the first of the three to receive Sports Racing bike donation from the federation.
He said he hoped the initiative would also encourage the Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana National Fire Service and other security agencies to establish their own cycling programmes, raising the overall profile of the sport.
On behalf of the Prisons Service, the Deputy Director of Prisons Fiifi Dontoh thanked the federation and the African Cycling Network Satellite for the donation, describing it as an invitation into the cycling fraternity that the service intended to honour by developing genuine competitive talent among its officers.