Kickway Claims Tema Draughts Open Trophy

By John Vigah

DEEP-thinking George Afrifa, alias Kickway, exhibited a star-spangling performance to win this year's Tema Draughts Open championship at the weekend.

The much-dreaded Tema-based Kickway beat Accra's Nii Arday 2-0 with three of their tension-packed five-piece game drawing to prolonged applause from the large crowd that turned out for the two-day thriller.

For his hard-fought effort, Kickway walked away with a cash prize of GH¢2,000, while Arday pocketed GH¢1,200. The second runner-up Abu National took home GH¢800 with fourth-placed Kweku Ayigbe settling for GH¢500.

There was, however, near calamity at the Tema Community 5 venue when Abu National collapsed in the course of his game against Kickway and it had to take spectators present running frantically for water to revive him.

The incident occurred during the last game of their five-piece semi-final tie which saw Kickway leading 2-1. Another draw for Kickway means the game would be over; and that is what Abu wanted to prevent. He needed a win at all cost to put him in contention - and this set him 'thinking his brains out' until he passed out.

"We've never experienced anything like this before; but we thank God all was fine and we had a fantastic competition," Adansi Aboagye, one of the competition's sponsors, told the Times Sports yesterday.

Other sponsors were Alhaji Karim Gariba and Frank Aboagye.

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