Algiers as a warming up for Tokyo
Summer 2021 will be hot in many respects for African athletes. If things go well and if the pandemic is correctly mastered as it should be in the next few months, the schedule plans to have two major athletics events for African representatives from June to August 2021: the African Senior Athletics Championship and the Olympic Games.
As written previously, the Tokyo Olympic Games are supposed to take place from July 23 to August 8, 2021, after the one-year postponement decided by the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government. Let us remind that 2021 is the ultimate year for the host country, which does not want to hear about a longer adjournment.
For African athletes who will be eligible and qualified for the Olympic Games, they will have the opportunity to get ready and shine during the African Senior Athletics Championship located in Algiers. Hamad Kalkaba Malboum, president of the Confederation of African Athletics, confirmed that the competition will occur one month or forty days before the OG. Basically, the championship’s dates were June 24-28 of this year.
The 22nd edition of the athletics championship on the African continent has not begun yet, but it already raises questions: how to tackle the preparation issue, and the fact that athletes will have difficulties to get prepared for a tournament that was supposed to happen in a few days? What about the financial aspect since all those cancellations directly hit athletes’ wallets?
If a beginning of answer was set up financially speaking, with 500 000 dollars raised by the International Athletics Foundation to help these athletes, the work is still in process right now (what about the sharing of such an amount?).
The next African championship will also be a round of qualifications for some athletes with a view to Tokyo.
By Guillaume Mahot
