The deal to train at Plymouth High School for Girls has been organised by Plymouth Ghana Link, a group set up in 2003 to encourage and support community links between the Devon city and West African country.

The team from Ghana are expected to arrive in Ghana towards the end of June before checking in at the Olympic Village in London on July 16. 

"It is absolutely fantastic news," said Peter Reid, the secretary of Plymputh Ghana Link.

"The idea came about at a Link meeting a couple of years ago.

"Someone suggested we should invite them and we sent the Ghana President of the Olympic Committee, Professor Francis Dodoo, a formal invitation from Plymouth City Council.

"Everybody is delighted and very excited.

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity."

Ghana, who made their Olympic debut as the Gold Coast at Helsinki in 1952, sent only nine athletes to Beijing four years ago but are hoping that up to 25 will qualify for London in athletics, boxing, judo, taekwondo and weightlifting. 

Its football team, who had been expected to be one of the favourites for a medal at London, were surprisingly knocked out in the early qualifiying rounds.

It was the football team who won the last of Ghana's four Olympic medals, a bronze at Barcelona in 1992.

Ghana's best-ever performance at an Olympics came at Rome in 1960 when boxer Clement Quartey won a silver medal in the men's light welterweight division, losing to Bohumil Němeček from Czechoslovakia.

Ghana, whose participation in London was in doubt last year following alleged Government interference, chose Plymouth after visiting Loughborough and Manchester.

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