The Dash

Before Wellington schoolboy Edward Osei-Nketia won the 100m sprint national titles in New Zealand and Australia, his father Gus made a daring and decisive dash that changed the course of his life completely.

February 3, 1990

Two Ghanaian sprinters are about to make a daring escape from the athletes' village at the Auckland Commonwealth Games.

Gus Nketia and Laud Codjoe were supposed to be flying home.

Instead, they were stealing away to start a new life as refugees in New Zealand.

Their getaway vehicle was a beaten up old work van.

The getaway driver, Māori musician and producer Armand Crown.

Armand had brought his two kids Helen, 10, and Phil, 12 along.

“I was only 10 and I don’t think I had ever met an African person before, so I was just captivated by these guys,” Helen says.

The plan, so far as there was one, was to stay on the move.

The Ghanaian team was due to fly out at 8:30 that Sunday morning.

Gus, Laud and their co-conspirators figured the best option was to drive around Auckland until they knew the plane was in the air. A moving target would be harder to find.

Gus Nketia

The pair wound up at Armand’s Glenfield home.

He took them to his office at Aotearoa Radio - New Zealand’s first Māori owned radio station.

As Liane Clarke broadcast news of their escape, the pair sat watching in the Papatoetoe studio.

“She begins reading out a story talking about these two guys who had absconded from the Commonwealth Games village and she is looking directly at us through the glass with her eyes as wide as saucers,” Armand chuckles.