(Mohammed Benchrif)

Kenya largely dominated the final of the two-lap event by taking gold and silver thanks to the efforts of Emmanuel Korir, the newly crowned Olympic champion with a time of 1 min 45 sec 06, who beat his compatriot Ferguson Rotich by 17 hundredths of a second and Polish athlete Patryk Dobek (who finished in 1 min 45 sec 39).

Korir followed in the footsteps of another compatriot the legendary David Rudisha, world record holder and twice winner of the Olympic title, in London 2012 and Rio 2016.

The Moroccan athlete Soufiane El Bakkali was crowned Olympic champion in the 3000m steeplechase on Monday in Tokyo, thereby gifting Morocco its 7^th Olympic gold medal, all of which have been won on the track.

After the gold medals taken home by Nawal El Moutawakel (400m hurdles in Los Angeles), Saïd Aouïta (5000m in Los Angeles), Brahim Boutayeb (10,000m in Seoul), Khalid Skah (10,000m in Barcelona) and the historic double of Hicham El Guerrouj (1500m and 5000m in Athens), Soufiane El Bakkali will return bearing precious metal, becoming the first Moroccan Olympic champion in the 3000m steeplechase.

The third day of competitions in the flagship Olympic discipline (Athletics) was marked by the stellar performance of South-African Akani Simbinein the 100m final, the fall suffered by Botswanan Amos Nigel and his elimination from the 800m semi-finals as well as the qualification of several representatives of the African continent for upcoming rounds.    

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....