By Jejje Muhinde;
The 22nd edition of the African Senior Athletics Championships in Algeria have been postponed for a third time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The biennial event should have been held in 2020 with some of Africa’s best track and field athletes scheduled to covege in Algiers but was rescheduled for June 1 to 5 in Oran, before being moved again to June 22 to 26 in Algeria.
Now the event’s date and venue are uncertain, with no word yet from the Confederation of African Athletics of new arrangements.
World Athletics has set June 29 as the deadline for reaching the qualifying mark to take part at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
The Algerian Ministry of Youth and Sports (MJS) said in a statement that the decision was “due to the health situation, marked by a resurgence in the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and the risk of circulation of new variants”.
The Ministry said it was “following the recommendations of the scientific monitoring committee of the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic”.
“The MJS called on the Algerian Athletics Federation (FAA) to make the necessary arrangements to inform the officials of the Confederation of African Athletics in order to agree new dates for the holding of these championships as soon as the health situation improves,” it added.
The African Athletics Championships were last held in the Nigerian city of Asaba in 2018. The callellation of the Athletics championships follows the cancellation of the African Cross Country championships which was to be held in Lome, Togo on 8 of April, CAA moved the event to March 2021, the same month as the World Cross Country championships.
