Following the careful deliberation and consideration by the Presidential Steering Committee (PSC) on COVID-19, the 2021 edition of the African Athletics Championships scheduled to hold In Lagos from June 23 to 27, has been cancelled.
In a letter signed by Dr. Assail Hassan, Deputy Head of Technical Secretariat of PSC and addressed to the Minister of youth and Social Development, it becomes imperative for the tournament to be rescheduled following the increasing trend of COVID-19 cases in certain countries coupled with the widespread prevalence of the mutant strains of the virus outside Nigeria.
In addition, the PSC stated that “Recent re-institutionalisation of enforcement of the COVID-19 Health Protection Regulations in the country due to increasing non-adherence by the public of non-pharmaceutical interventions and other COVID-19 protocols.”
“Delay in vaccinating a large proportion of the citizenry due to a shortage in the global supply of vaccines, which translates to a risk of another wave of infections in the country.”
“In view of this, the PSC concluded, “It is the considered opinion of the PSC that hosting the 2021 edition of the African Athletics Championships at this time will constitute a threat to the gains that have been made by the national response in mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) had hoped that with Nigeria hosting the championships would give athletes the chance to achieve qualifying standards for the Tokyo Olympics ahead of the June 29 deadline.
It is yet another problem to hit the biennial event which should have taken place in 2020 before being postponed by a year due to Covid-19.
The plan was then to hold the championships in the Algerian city of Oran between the 1st and 5th June 2021 before it was moved to Algiers and set to take place June 22 to 26.
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