The University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR), Sunyani has won three medals at the just ended 27th GUSA games held at KNUST from the 4th to 19th November, 2022.
As tradition demands, public Universities across the country gathered under one roof at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology to battle it out for the bragging rights as the best university in the country when it comes to sports.
This year’s GUSA Games, themed “Harnessing Sporting Talents of Students for National Development through healthy competition using science and technology”, marked the 27th edition since its inception, and saw about 4,500 athletes compete.
UENR presented 3 teams for this year’s games. The Athletics team, Football team and the Basketball team.
FOOTBALL
Team UENR was placed in Group B with the likes of UHAS, UMaT, GIMPA and UG. UENR began her journey for medals at 3:00pm on Sunday 6th November 2022 at Paa Joe 2 park where they beat GIMPA on penalties. The second match came against UHAS on Tuesday 8th November at Paa Joe 2 where UENR comfortably beat their opponents 3 – 0 to claim the maximum points of the game. The most anticipated match of the group came against UG on Thursday 10th November 2022 at 6:00am at KUMACA. At the end of 90 minutes the game was goalless. UG beat UENR on penalties to take top spot in Group B. UENR ended their group games with a 3 goal win against UMat on Saturday 12th November 2022 at KUMACA to make it to the quarterfinals of the competition. The quarterfinal which also happened the the last game for team UENR was played against AMMUSTED at 6:00am on Tuesday 15th November 2022 at Paa Joe1. UENR were beaten by a goal to nil in the 85th minute to end the fantastic display of football and shatter the dreams of UENR making it to the next stage of the competition.
BASKETBALL
Team UENR was placed in Group A with the likes of UDS, UMaT, and UCC. TEAM UENR began their journey with a match against UDS, but were no match as they lost woefully to ‘Bull Dogs’ of UDS 85 – 38. Game 2 saw a thumping from UCC as UENR lost . Game 3 also saw UENR lose to UMaT to make them the worst performing team in Group as they lost all their games.
ATHLETICS
Team UENR presented a total of 15 athletes to participate in 20 athletics events which are, 100m Men, 400m Men, 400m Women, 5000m Men, 5000m Women, 400m hurdle Men, 800m Men, 800m Women, 1500m Men, 1500m Women, 200m Men, 200m Women, 10000m Men, Javelin, discus, Shotput, Pole Vault, High Jump, Long jump.
Samuel Oduro of Team UENR picked up two silver medals in the 5000m men finals and the 10000m men finals, running a time of 15.02 seconds and 31.37 seconds respectively and catching the eyes of both foreign and local scouts and officials. Gilbert Kwofie-Gyasi with a time of 55.01 seconds in the 400m hurdle men finals to place 3rd and win a bronze medal for Team UENR.
At the end of the games, Team UENR placed 6th out of 14 Universities and put up a splendid display of sportsmanship despite injuries and unfavorable conditions to make them the team to look out for in the next GUSA Games to be held at the University of Cape Coast (UCC).
The Ghana Universities Sports Association Games is a biennial sporting event organized and hosted on rotational basis amongst the various public universities in the country. With an initial number of 3 public universities, GUSA now has a membership of 14 public universities competing for top honors in 12 disciplines namely, Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Beach Volleyball, Volleyball, football, Goalball, Handball, Hockey, Netball, Table Tennis, and Lawn Tennis.