Chaos ruin African Senior Athletics Championships
Calistus Kolantsho | Tuesday June 25, 2024 10:39
Horrendous management of the championships has seen Kamal Badru Juma, president of Mozambique Athletics Association, who also serves as CAA Southern Region vice president, calling on the CAA leadership under Hamad Kalkaba Malboun to resign. The same situation that is unfolding in Douala took place during the 2018 edition in Asaba, Nigeria. It led to the results from the competition being scrapped off by World Athletics while the last championships, which were hosted by Mauritius, were ruined by harsh weather conditions. The chaotic conditions in Douala also led to some top athletes such as Marie Josée Dominique Ta Lou-Smith (Ivory Coast), Favour Ofili (Nigeria), Rosemary Chukwuma (Nigeria) and Shaun Maswanganyi (South Africa) withdrawing from their races.
Botswana sprint sensation, Letsile Tebogo false-started and was disqualified during the men’s 100m semi-final. Speaking to the media after winning his heat, Tebogo was not too pleased with the officials and administrators for the scheduling and run times for the races on day one of the competition. “We will see about the final because there is a lot of disorganised stuff here. Maybe I am going to run or maybe I will not run. You do warm up and wait for an hour to be called but we know that time is money in athletics. That is why I did not even put all my effort during the heat. My focus is on the Paris 2024 Olympics not the Africa Senior Championships,” Tebogo said. Meanwhile, team Botswana manager, Kenneth Kikwe, told SportMonitor that the competition was not up to standard and has challenges. “I am not sure why things are happening the way they are happening. Maybe we are just too relaxed when it comes to standards. The West and North African countries have monopolised every sporting code and when it comes to bids, they support each other, regardless of their capabilities,” he said.
Kikwe said the 2018 results in Asaba, Nigeria, were nullified by the then International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and they are yet to see if the results from Douala will stand. Furthermore, Botswana lost an opportunity to host the 2026 edition of the African Senior Championships to Ghana. Botswana was beaten by Ghana by 12 votes to three. The Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) president, Moses Bantsi, said there were many factors that led to Botswana losing out on winning the bid. “Some of the factors that led to our loss is that our region hosted the last edition of the championships in Mauritius and last year, Zambia hosted the Under 18/20 still in our region. Those might be the factors that the CAA Council members considered because our role was just to prepare the bid and present,” he said.
Some of the results: Tsaone Sebele finished in position five in the women’s 100m clocking 11.45s. The race was won by Gina Mariam Bass Bitaye of Gambia in a time of 11.14s with Maia Mccoy of Liberia scooping silver medal after stopping the clock in 11.16s. Mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Leungo Scotch, Obakeng Kamberuka, Bayapo Ndori and Galefele Moroka settled for bronze medal with a time of 3:15.93. The race was won by South Africa posting a time of 3:13.12 with Nigeria taking home the silver medal with a time of 3:13.72. Thapelo Monaiwa finished in position five in the men’s long jump after jumping 7.68m.