Starting gun fires despite setbacks

It has been billed the African continent’s biggest own exclusive multi-sporting event – officially as the 10th All-Africa Games and unofficially as the African Olympics, or the Pan-African Games, which are being held in Mozambique until 18 September. Yet there was hardly any marketing of the event – with even the event’s mascot, Cojito, a friendly yellow chick, rarely being seen on the streets of Maputo, the capital city hosting the event.

Most of the 23 different sport events of the games are being held in the seaboard capital’s new Zimpeto National Stadium, or Estádio do Zimpeto.

More than 5 000 athletes were expected to take part, although neither the programme nor the list of participants were finalised until the last minute. The Sowetan even predicted that many of Africa’s top athletes were expected to be absent when the starting pistol was fired.

Mozambique inaugurated the new stadium – a jewel by African standards – in April, but what concerned many journalists and other onlookers was that authorities had been racing against the clock to complete the 848-apartment Games Village where athletes and coaches were to be housed.

Work still had to be completed on the other 16 venues for an event awarded to Mozambique two years ago after original host Zambia withdrew for financial reasons.

Mozambique built the $70-million (R498-million) national stadium and a new international airport for $75m with the help of China, which is a major investor in mining and the infrastructure of the country.

“On average, the completion rate of the projects we are working on is 85% to 90%” José Salomone Cossa, director-general of Games organising committee, Coja, told reporters in August. However, all 27 village apartment blocks were to be handed over to Coja by the end of August, he
told AFP.

“At the moment, four blocks have furniture. They already have everything necessary for the athletes to be housed in liveable facilities,” Cossa added.

Constant congestion on the highway that links the Zimpeto stadium and the Olympic village to central Maputo, 13 kilometres away, was a logistical point of concern, but Coja has dedicated one traffic lane to accredited vehicles to ensure fast movement.

A fleet of 200 buses and cars is available to shuttle athletes and journalists between locations.

Participating countries have entered and withdrawn teams from several events. For example, the South African and Malawi netball teams pulled out of the Games, which inspired the Amateur Netball Association of Tanzania to send a team.

Final athlete numbers still had to be confirmed in several cases – further complicating logistics and accreditation, said Cossa.

The 10th All-Africa Games marks only the third time that the event is being held in the southern part of the continent.

While most venues are located in and around Maputo, the canoeing and rowing venue is Chidenguella Lagoon, 275km north of the city.

Modern Olympics founder Pierre de Coubertin conceived what was then called the Pan-African Games as early as 1920. The colonials who ruled Africa at the time were wary of the idea, suspecting that the unifying aspect of sport among African people would cause them to assert
their independence.

Attempts were made to host the games in various countries in 1925 and Egypt in 1928; but despite considerable preparations taken by the co-ordinators, the efforts failed.

In July 1965, the first were held in Brazzaville, Congo, and called the All-Africa Games. From 30 countries, around 2 500 athletes competed. Egypt topped the medal count for the first games.

In 1966, the Supreme Council for Sports in Africa was organised in Bamako to manage the All-Africa Games.

The second edition was awarded to Mali in 1969, but a military coup forced the cancellation of the event.

Nigeria, a regular contender, stepped in as host for the Games in 1971. Those were finally held in 1973 due to the Nigerian-Biafra War, which had just ended in that country.

In 1977, the 3rd Games were scheduled to take place in Algeria but, due to technical reasons, it had to be postponed for a year and was held in 1978.

Continuing the pattern, the next Games were scheduled to take place in Kenya in 1983, but were pushed back to 1985, and finally took place in Nairobi in 1987.

The four-year Olympic rhythm has not missed a beat since, and the Games have been organised in Cairo, Harare, Johannesburg and Abuja.

In 2007, Algiers once again hosted – becoming the first repeat host.

In the same year, South Africa competed in the All-Africa Games in Algeria, coming home with 62 gold, 58 silver and 53 bronze medals. This put South Africa third behind Egypt and Algeria. ☑

Udo Rypstra