Track & Field: Estancia product bound for Rio
UC Irvine student-athlete and Estancia High product Persis William-Mensah has earned a berth on Ghana’s Olympic team for the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
William-Mensah, who will be a junior at UCI in the fall, was selected as a member of Ghana’s 4x100-meter relay for track and field. She is one of 16 Olympians overall representing Ghana in Rio.
She was born in Cape Coast, Ghana and moved at a young age with her family to Southern California.
William-Mensah was selected for Ghana’s relay pool after competing in the 100 meters at the African Senior Track & Field Championships in Durban, South Africa and a meet in Cape Coast last month.
“No it hasn’t hit me yet,” William-Mensah said in a statement of her upcoming Olympic experience. “It hadn’t even hit me that I was going to Ghana until I was there, so I don’t think this will hit me until the Opening Ceremonies when they call my country and I see all the people.”
“I just want to experience Rio,” she said. “I want to watch gymnastics. I want to go see Gabby Douglas and see her compete. I watched her in London [four years ago] from my couch so I hope I can see her now that she’s going back. What I’m looking forward to the most is being surrounded by that level of talent and the dedication they put into the sport. I think that will motivate me going into my next year.”
William-Mensah ran the anchor leg on the Anteaters’ 4x100 relay that won the Big West Conference title in May with a school-record time of 44.51 seconds. It was the second-fastest time in conference championship history and marked UCI’s first league title in the event since 1992.
She was runner-up in the 100 meters at the Big West Championships with a time of 11.55 seconds.
William-Mensah competed in the 100 meters and on UCI’s 4x100 relay in the NCAA West Preliminary Round at Lawrence, Kan., in late May.
In track and field, she joins former UCI All-American and NCAA champion Charles Jock, who will represent the U.S. in the 800 meters at the Rio Games.
“It’s great,” William-Mensah said. “I know that Charles Jock is going as well, so I think it’s nice that UC Irvine will be represented over there. It’s going to help the school and its reputation.
“I’ll be watching Charles’ events and cheering him on because we need that Anteater pride,” she said. “I’ll probably be training with my Ghanaian team, but I’ll definitely see him around.
“I’m excited for the Olympic Village, too, and seeing the other Big West athletes. “When you’re in the conference, you’re rivals against other schools, so it’s really cool now for all of us to go to Rio together and represent the Big West.”
UCI head coach Jeff Perkins is also excited to have two representatives of the Anteater program competing in Rio.
“We’re obviously headed in the right direction having two Anteaters representing the track program in the 2016 Olympic Games,” he said. “I think it’s exciting to see where they are headed in terms of their athletic careers and where they both came from having been from Africa, and to get here and grow up in the U.S. and see them reach their true potential as student-athletes. Both are very intelligent and students of the sport, so it’s kind of neat to see them compete on that level amongst the best in the world.
“Our UCI team is very excited,” Perkins added. “Persis is a very endearing person and very popular amongst the team, so they are very excited to see her go represent Ghana in the Olympics. It’s definitely helped in recruiting a bit. We definitely have some good talent coming in this year. We’re very excited to see how it all plays out with the upcoming years and keeping the tradition alive. It’s been a while since Steve Scott [UCI alum and three-time Olympian], but we’re excited to see what she does with this opportunity.”
Eight people with ties to UCI are currently scheduled to participate in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, which run Aug. 5-21.
The other athletes competing are David Smith and Kevin Tillie, representing the United States and France, respectively, in men’s volleyball as well as badminton participants Eva Lee, a UCI alumna, and current UCI student Phillip Chew.
UCI women’s water polo coach Dan Klatt is an assistant for the U.S. women’s team, while former UCI swimmer Dave Durden is an assistant with USA men’s swimming.
— From staff reports
— From staff reports