Ms. Elizabeth Opoku, captain of the national female hockey team, Black Sticks Ladies, was adjudged Ghana’s Outstanding Woman in Sports for the second time.
She led her team to win gold at the recently held Africa Games in Accra and led her club, GRA Ladies, to win the 2024 Greater Accra Hockey League and the 2024 Fetu Afahye Competition held in Cape Coast.
She was honoured during the seventh edition of the Ghana Outstanding Woman Awards (GOWA) held at the Wesley Towers in Accra, organised by ASKOF Production.
She previously won the same in 2019.
Speaking in an interview with the GNA Sports, the national team forward thanked the organisers for the recognition and assured her fans and the hockey fraternity that she would continue to do her best for the sport.
She also acknowledged the support of her mother and thanked God for making it possible for her mom to see how far she has gone in her sporting career.
The three-time Sports Writers Association of Ghana (SWAG) Award winner, who is also a founding member of ChariCare, a non-governmental organisation that supports underprivileged kids and communities, was also grateful to all who supported her course and career.
Ms. Opoku is one of the most decorated female athletes in Ghana and on the continent.
In 2009, she was awarded as the best player in the Schools and Colleges Sports Federation and won the promising star player award in the 2010 Chairman’s Invitational Cup. In 2012, the University of Ghana awarded her as the Discovery of the Year during the VC Awards and she emerged the best player and top scorer in the 2013 Africa Hockey Cup of Nations in Kenya.
Accra-based Happy FM also awarded her in 2013 with the Fans Choice Award as the best player in hockey and won the International Hockey Federation (FIH) best junior player in the Hockey World League R1 the following year. In 2019, she was voted as Ghana’s Outstanding Woman in Sports.
The Ghana Outstanding Woman Award is organised by ASKOF Production to recognise Ghanaian women’s significant contributions to nation-building. The event aims to recognise, empower, and celebrate women in Ghana and the African continent.
