Gambia's trailblazing Gina Bass laying the foundation for the next generation
Gambia’s Gina Bass is the ideal athlete. In her country, she is seen as a messianic figure who had come to save what felt like a “failing” sport a few years ago and she has lived up to that quite well.
The sprinter is Gambia's most popular athlete. With so many continental honours to her name, she has now set her sights on replicating that level of winning at the Olympic Games in Paris.
When Bass crossed the 200m finish line at the recent Continntal Games, she quickly fixated her eyes on the clock that hang high up over the Legon Stadium in Accra. She had finished first and won the gold medal, but the celebration was muted: all she cared about was the time. Then it came up… 23.13s.
It was an unpleasant cocktail of ebullience and mild chagrin. In 2019, she had run faster (22.58s) to win the gold medal so she knew it could’ve been better. Then again, the 200m race in Ghana was only her first outdoor race of the season. The time mattered, yet it didn’t matter. She let out a wry smile and then proceeded to congratulate her competitors on the track before draping herself in her country’s flag.
Bass also won the women's 100m for the sprint double. “It has motivated young athletes that are really doing their very best to come up. I know it’s not easy,” she told Olympics.com.
“My country is such that we like sports. We really have talented athletes, not just me but lots are and will be great athletes. I really wish one day one athlete will [achieve] more than me in my country. Because I see many talented athletes in Gambia,” she reflected.
Bass’ name may be on the lips of many Gambians and lovers of track and field across the African continent now. It is a far cry from where she was a few years ago when many including her countrymen nicknamed her ”The Poorest Olympian”.
Cutting her teeth
Bass comes from Tubakuta, Gambia, southwest of the capital Banjul. Her family moved around a bit, but given an innate love for athletics, Bass expressed her love for it everywhere she moved to.
She started out early, first at primary school level and then junior high school in Brikama, a larger town near Tubakuta. “I started running when I was in primary school, like we have Junior Championships.
“It’s where I started running and it’s where I started to notice that, if I work hard I will be a great athlete,” she said.
She achieved the qualifying time for the inaugural Summer Youth Olympic Games Singapore 2010 but participation in it was reserved for athletes born between January 1993 and December 1994. That meant Bass, born in May 1995, was too young to compete at that competition.
Aged 16, she ran for her country at the 2011 World Youth Championships, an under-18 competition, where she finished sixth in her 100m heat with a time of 12.44s.
Stories of role models usually shape careers, but in Bass’s case, there weren’t too many successful Gambian female athletes to look up to in sport so she had to look outside of her country.
Côte d'Ivoire’s Murielle Ahoure was who she settled on, and it came as a big surprise to her in 2020 when she beat her role model in the 60m dash at a World Athletics Indoor Tour meet by just 0.01s.
Bass’ Olympic journey
And then there is her unforgettable Olympic adventure.
Bass made her first appearance at the Games at Rio 2016. At 21, she had broken two Gambian national records and become the first female athlete from the country to qualify for the Olympic Games.
Rio was an eye-opening experience for the young athlete, who ran only in the 200m at the Games and finished with a time of 23.43s, which was slower than the 22.92s she had ran to win bronze at the African Championships in Durban two months prior. “It was not easy because I met people who were ahead of me. They had more experience I was just coming off the junior level to senior level. What mattered most to me was that I qualified,” she explained with a smile.
Bass did not make it to the semi-finals at the Games, but even “getting to Rio is what I call experience,” she pointed out. “Because of that, I had experience to work hard and to work on myself.”
Tokyo 2020 came around in 2021 and Bass was there again, this time with the aim of reaching a step higher than she had done in Rio five years earlier. In Japan, she was ready. She ran 11.16 in the 100m and then 22.68 in the 200m, reaching the semi-finals in both events.
But despite running what felt like the races of her life, she was left a little disheatened by not making the finals. “I was disappointed because you see I was in shape by then, and I didn’t make it to the final. But it’s part of sports. Sometimes you expect to be somewhere else when it’s not yet time.
“Some people are there for so many decades but they can’t reach the final. Being there, I was my objective to be in the semis which I had made it. So if I was in the final it would have been a plus for me.”
The Olympic Games Paris 2024 is an opportunity for Bass to put her disappointments behind her and focus on reaching the final of both races. Despite winning double gold in Accra, the Olympic Games presents a much bigger test for the Gambian and she has already set her sights on the track in the French capital.
“I feel good. I closed my season last year with 11.0s. This year, I have to run in the region of 10.9; that’s the main objective. So I just have to focus and relax, work on the problems I have in my races with my coach, and just hope for the best.”
Gina Bass: One of Gambia's best athletes
The history of sport in the Gambia cannot be written without Gina Bass. Her name cannot be excluded from a conversation of who the best athletes from her country are.
She is the second Gambian athlete in history to clock the qualification standard for an Olympic Games, after Suwaibou Sanneh who qualified for the 100m race at the Olympic Games London 2012.
Powerful African women have for many years inspired a sense of pride for many young girls across the continent. Now Gina Bass is on this path too, inspiring children and young athletes from her country and continent one race at a time.