On Friday in Tokyo, Ethiopian Selemon Barega was crowned Olympic champion in the 10,000m and in so doing unseated the out-and-out favourite and world record holder, Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei. He thereby provided Africa with its 9th Olympic title over this distance.

Barega, a surprise winner, finished in 27min 43sec 22, outpacing Cheptegei (27min 43sec 63) and fellow Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo (27 min 43 sec 88) in a race hotly contested by runners from Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya who made up the leading pack for the entirety of the final.

Moroccan Aziz Daouda, Technical and Development Director of the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) was sure to congratulate all CAA member federations who have managed to secure qualification for their athletes, despite exceptionally tough circumstances. The number of athletes who have qualified is exactly one third of those who participate regularly in the African Championships. In other words, the continent has come a long way and many countries, who until now had not managed to gain qualification for their athletes, are now present, some of who even are genuine medal prospects.

The Confederation of African Athletics (CAA), in partnership with World Athletics, intends to provide exceptional media coverage of the athletics competitions at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Thus, from July 30 to August 8, articles on promising African athletes, the day before their competition days, but also a report of their performances will be published on the website of the African Athletics Confederation: http: / /www.caaweb.org. The CAA will build on the teams deployed by World Athletics to Tokyo and Monaco over the ten days of athletics competition.

 The goal is for athletics to be the sport with the most distribution on websites, social networks, Instagram etc. ...

Afghanistan (AFG) - Kimia Yousofi (women’s 100m)
Albania (ALB) - Luiza Gega (women’s 3000m steeplechase)
Andorra (AND) - Pol Moya (men’s 800m)
Antigua and Barbuda (ANT) - Cejhae Greene (men’s 100m)
Bahamas (BAH) - Donald Thomas (men’s high jump)

South African Akani Simbine (100m) and Burkinabe Hugues-Fabrice Zango (Triple jump) hit hard at the Istvan Gyulai Memorial, a meeting of the World Athletics Continental Tour which took place on Tuesday, July 6, 2021 in Szekesfehervar, Hungary.

2020 has been a special year due to the global Covid-19 pandemic. A health crisis which affected all sectors of life. And sport was no exception. However the
Confederation of African Athletics managed to keep the course though no activity on the African calendar could be organized due to health measures enacted by
the governments of the various countries....

The 22nd Africa senior championships have been cancelled by the Confederation of African Athletics for lack of host country.

« It is with regret that I announce the cancellation of the Africa senior championships which were planned to take place in Lagos from June 23 to 27, 2021. Indeed, after the Algeria’s desire to postpone the championships,  and realizing the need to offer competition to our athletes, the Confederation decided to find a host country so as to save the championships. Unfortunately, Nigeria, which committed to host the competition has just informed CAA that the Scientific Commission had not allowed to host such a big competition.»

It is finally Lagos (Nigeria) which will host the 22nd edition of the African senior championships from June 23 to 27, 2021. The decision was announced by the president of the CAA, Hamad Kalkaba Malboum, after a meeting in Cairo (Egypt) with the Nigerian Minister of Sports Sunday Dare on the sidelines of the ANOCA Conference. 

The 22nd African Senior Athletics Championships, initially scheduled for June 22-26 in Algiers, were finally postponed to a later date, due to the health situation linked to the Covid-19 pandemic and following "recommendations" of the Algerian scientific committee for monitoring the evolution of the pandemic.