Winning a medal will ease pain in the neck

Danso-Dapaah looks for relief She has headaches ‘seven days a week’

Keesha Danso- Dapaah is convinced that a neck injury suffered in a soccer game four years ago is the reason for her daily headaches. Despite acupuncture and physiotherapy, the gutsy 15year- old wants to ease some of the pain by winning a medal at the Ontario high school crosscountry finals set for a picturesque Kingston- area course on Nov. 5. An honours student at St. Aloysius Gonzaga High School in Mississauga, Danso- Dapaah hopes to qualify for the Kingston event at the Region of Peel run set for next Friday in Brampton.

She’s quite familiar with the Brampton course having won the Heart Lake Invitational last Friday by finishing ahead of Laura Twindle of Erindale by 20 seconds.

For Twindle, who won the Peel 3,000- metre final a year ago by 32 seconds over Danso- Dapaah, it was her first loss of the season. “The headaches, they’re 24 hours a day and seven days a week,” said Danso-Dapaah, a native of New Westminister, B. C., who finds some relief by listening to hip- hop music before a race.

“ The doctors thought I had a misalignment of my jaw but we don’t really know.” Danso-Dapaah practises four days a week for her school and also works out with her Etobicoke Huskies club team.

“As far as I am concerned, there’s no use competing if you’re not in shape,” she said.

“ I find that when I run, I think about setting personal goals. I also find training hard is a good distraction from the headaches and a ( provincial) medal would really make me feel better.”

Danso- Dapaah won a 800 metres bronze medal last June at the Ontario Federation of Schools Athletic Association track and field championships.

Three years ago, she won a silver medal at the Junior Olympics for competitive skipping held in Virginia Beach, Fla. She also enjoys modelling and acting, having had a small role in the Walt Disney movie Pooch and the Pauper, as well as appearing in a television family chronicle.