Michael Essien recover from his knee injury until the end of July, more than two weeks after the tournament was to end. Since then, Essien has announced that he will be standing down from the Ghana national side for the near future in order to focus on his career with Chelsea, having suffered two significant injuries while playing for Ghana in recent years. Having recovered from those injuries, Essien subsequently promised his availability to his nation "very soon". Essien returned to Ghana's squad in August 2013 for the team's final 2014 World Cup qualifiers. He appeared as a second-half substitute in a
2011 African Cross Country Championships the best performers at that year's Kenya Cross Country Championships to the world event, while those ranking seventh to tenth in the national race were sent to the event in Cape Town. The continent's second foremost nation in cross country, Ethiopia, did not send any athletes to the competition. The Kenyan team's jubilant celebrations led to the entire squad of 30 runners and officials missing their flight for Nairobi, scheduled later that day at Cape Town International Airport. 2011 African Cross Country Championships The 1st African Cross Country Championships was an international cross country running competition for African athletes which