Yomi Omogbeja (11/11/2004)

Five major track and field meetings will be held across the continent from next year as part of a new initiative to bolster African athletics.

The African track and field permit series and meetings, which is set to make 2005 the year of the African athletics renaissance, will be staged in Dakar, Abuja, Rabat, Johannesburg, and Nairobi.

Africa's athletics infrastructure is also to be raised to the highest level in order for international Grand Prix style track and field meetings to be held on African soil, and for her best athletes to compete regularly on the continent.

These athletics meetings will be hosted in:

The Africa Athletics Confederation (AAC) announced this initiatives at the launch of the Africa Athletics Foundation in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The newly-formed Africa Athletics Foundation headquarters will be located in Port Louis, Mauritius.

And will aim to accelerate the development of the sports at a continental grassroots level; and to provide a nucleus from which to build a sustainable elite athletics competition circuit in Africa.

The Foundation strategy will be delivered through the IAAF Regional Development Centres, and its vision driven by the five Regional Athletics Track Clubs to be situated in Abuja-Nigeria, Cairo-Egypt, Dakar-Senegal, Johannesburg-South Africa, and Nairobi-Kenya.

Technical development

IAAF President Lamine Diack said the "Regional Development Centres will provide the expertise necessary to uplift the quality of administration, as well as the technical skills in coaching and officiating."

The AAC has also signed a major sponsorship agreement with the Grinaker Corporation to expedite Africa's athletics development.

All sponsorship dealings for the events will be handled by the African Athletics Foundation, headed by AAC President Colonel Hamad Kalkaba Malboum, with Nigerian Daniel Ngerem as vice president, Cameroonian David Ojong as secretary-general, and Clive Grinaker of Grinaker Sponsorship Marketing as treasurer.

Colonel Kalkaba Malboum said: "Our vision is to sustain athletics as the continent's most popular individual sport.

"Each of these Regional African Athletics Track Clubs will stage major athletics events and be part of the new African Grand Prix Series, with Africa's best athletes to be contracted and paid to participate in these events.

"We seek to enable our elite athletes to derive a decent livelihood here at home. We hope this will stem the tide of some of our best athletes seeking citizenship in Europe.

"At the same time we aim to introduce professionalism in the management of the sport throughout the continent."

Colonel Malboum also hinted at plans to inaugurate an Africa Athletics Hall of Fame and honour the continents’ elite athletes next year.

" We will launch the Hall of Fame on March 11 in Abuja. Our top athletes will take on the USA in a test match in Abuja on March 12-13.

"Africa's track and field stars will get their chance to match and beat the best of Europe in the second Test Match of 2005 on African soil, in Tanger, Morocco in September next year."