Olympics: Owen Ansah, Germany's fastest man with Ghana roots

Owen Ansah refused to accept what he had achieved until he saw it written down in black and white.

With the scoreboard showing a time of 9.99 seconds, he had just become the first German athlete to break the 10-second barrier in the 100 meters.

Setting that new national record booked Ansah's spot here at the Paris Olympics and was his reward for a challenging year that ultimately saw him break through.

"It doesn't get given to you. You have to train for it," Ansah told reporters after his record run at Germany's athletics championships in June. "You have to train hard day after day. You have to set your sights on what you want to do."

The achievement put Ansah in the same league as the legendary German sprinter Armin Harry, who won 100-meter gold at the Rome Olympics in 1960.

Harry's best mark of 10 seconds dead, which at the time was also a world record, stood as the German record for more than six decades but came in an era when times were measured manually with a stopwatch.

Unfortunately, Ansah hasn't carried his success over to Paris just yet. He finished fifth in the heats, running 10.22 seconds in a stacked field that included reigning world champion Noah Lyles.

He's not out of the Olympics just yet, as he's among Germany's sprint pool for the 4x100-meter relay. But regardless of the results, his place among Germany's best sprinters ever is already secured.

"I don't want to put any pressure on myself," Ansah told DW in a recent interview. "I'm taking a relaxed approach and seeing what happens in the end."

'My father is my biggest role model'

Ansah, who is from Hamburg, credits much of his success to his Ghanaian father. While some athletes would name other successful sprinters as their inspiration, the 23-year-old looks closer to home.

"My dad did athletics as a child," Ansah said. "He came to Germany back then without having anything. He worked hard to build up everything and brought three amazing children into the world. He's my biggest role model."

Hard work has been one of the major themes of Ansah's year. He missed much of the early part of the season with an injury to his pubic bone. Recovering from that has involved a lot of rehab and learning to be patient. "We had to put everything on ice and wait for it to go away," Ansah said.

There have been other sacrifices, too. Ansah moved away from Hamburg together with his coach, Sebastian Bayer, to train in Mannheim in the south of Germany. With family such an important part of Ansah's life, Bayer's role has extended to beyond that of a coach.

"It was a huge step for me at the beginning," Ansah said. "My coach came with me and I had a second father. It was clear that I would have had to take this step sooner or later anyway. You need to distance yourself from your habits and get out of your comfort zone. I know now that this step was definitely worth it."

The pair have been able to swap notes about the things they have in common.

"Through all my injuries I had different and better contact with him and that definitely gave me strength," Ansah said. "As an athlete he wasn't always injury-free and he always came back stronger. I always had that in the back of my mind."

Ansah's height poses a challenge

Part of Ansah's breakthrough has been down to understanding his developing body and what it requires, a sign of his growing maturity.

"I'm already paying much more attention to my diet, my sleep, and my training, and I'm recovering much better now than I did in 2022," Ansah said. "I'm a little older, you just look at it completely differently."

However, one thing Ansah cannot control is his height. At 1.90 meters, he is relatively tall for a sprinter, a trait he shares with the fastest man ever, Usain Bolt. And that comes with its own set of challenges.

"As you can often see, we don't come out of the starting blocks perfectly," Ansah said. "You have to get your long legs working somehow."

Height, of course, didn't ever stop Bolt from succeeding. And while the Jamaican won't usurp Ansah's father as his role model, he is surely someone else the German sprinter can take inspiration from.

This piece was originally published on August 2 and updated on August 3 to include the results of the men's 100-meter preliminary heats.

Additional reporting by: Johan Brockschmidt.

Edited by: Matt Pearson