The African Championships in Athletics is a continental athletics event organized by the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA), the continental association for the sport in Africa. Since its inaugural edition in 1979 it was at first organised intermittently with nine editions held in fourteen years until 1993. Following the tenth edition in 1996 it has been organised biennially on even years, and is always held in the same year as the Summer Olympics.
The event featured a men's marathon from 1979 to 1990. In 1988, women's 5 km walk was added. 1992, women's triple jump was added. 1998, women's hammer throw was added. 2000, women's pole vault was added.
Here's a summary of the championships:
- Founded: 1979
- Organized by: Confederation of African Athletics (CAA)
- Frequency: Biennially on even years since 1996
- Timing: Held in the same year as the Summer Olympics
At the inaugural edition of the World Athletics Championships held in Helsinki in 1983, a total of 123 medals were won, but only three of those medals went to Africa. Four decades down the line, the fortunes of the continent have witnessed a meteoric rise, owing to the sheer determination and resilience of its athletes.
In Helsinki, Nigeria’s Ajayi Agbebaku became the first African World Championships medallist when he clinched bronze in the men’s triple jump. Moroccan Said Aouita won another bronze in the men’s 1500m and Ethiopian Kebede Balcha claimed silver in the men’s marathon. While the efforts of the trio seemed like a drop in the ocean at the time, their exploits laid a foundation that future generations would build on.
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In fact, five gold medals from Rome in 1987 went to Africa, with three of them being won by Kenya. Paul Kipkoech set the pace by becoming the continent’s first world champion after dominating the men’s 10,000m, setting a then championship record of 27:38.63 in the process.
The 1990s ushered in a new generation of athletes that redefined the track and field landscape, and the third edition of the World Championships staged in Tokyo proved to be a pivotal moment for Africa. Firstly, up until that point, all of the world titles won by African athletes had been claimed in middle- and long-distance events.
Matete had set the stage for his triumph after racing to an African record of 47.10 at the Weltklasse Zurich meeting a couple of weeks earlier. That record still stands almost 32 years on, and the performance places him ninth on the world all-time list.
The second striking thing about Tokyo 1991 is that Algeria’s Hassiba Boulmerka became the first woman from an African nation to win a world title, or indeed a medal of any colour. Reflecting on her feat, she said: “I screamed for joy and for shock, and for much more. I was screaming for Algeria’s pride and Algeria’s history, and more.
Boulmerka wasn’t the only one making waves for Algeria during that era. Moroccan icon Hicham El Guerrouj picked up the baton from where Morceli left off. The Algerian would not have wished for a better successor, seeing as El Guerrouj became the first man to beat Morceli in four years when the duo raced at the Grand Prix final in Milan in 1996.
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Nicknamed ‘King of the mile’, he also set several world records, and his indoor 1500m record of 3:31.18 set in 1997 would stand for 22 years before being broken by Ethiopia’s Samuel Tefera. His teammate Nezha Bidouane recorded a spectacular breakthrough when she upstaged the Olympic champion Deon Hemmings of Jamaica and defending world champion Kim Batten of the US to win the women’s 400m hurdles at the Athens 1997 World Championships with a then area record of 52.97.
While the North Africans were dominating the middle distances, East Africa was showcasing its strength in the long distances, with Ethiopian legend Haile Gebrselassie headlining this spectacular cast, starting from Stuttgart in 1993. Fondly referred to as one of the greatest long-distance runners in history, the Ethiopian added two Olympic gold medals in his signature event and four world indoor titles to his medal kitty.
Gebrselassie garnered a total of seven individual outdoor World Championships medals - the highest number of medals won by an African athlete at the World Championships. Almost 25 years after making such history, Gebrselassie is still in awe of his exploits.
He said: “Winning a world title for the second time makes you very happy. To win it the third time makes you even more happy. But to win the 10,000m four times - four times consecutively without interruption - and to win it at the World Championships, is miraculous.
“My secret for consistency is very simple. I never focused on winning my races,” he added. “My focus was on my trainings and the discipline. I always took my training seriously and followed the disciplines meticulously. My diet, rest and recovery were my priorities.
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As the multiple world record-holder was approaching the twilight of his career, two spectacular stars emerged on the global scene: Tirunesh Dibaba and Kenenisa Bekele. And even more enthralling was the fact that they were both his compatriots. In 2003 Bekele beat his more experienced counterpart to snatch gold in the 10,000m as part of an Ethiopian medal sweep, with Sileshi Sihine settling for bronze.
Bekele went on to match Gebrselassie’s four-time winning streak in the 10,000m, adding titles in 2005, 2007 and 2009, and he was unbeaten for almost eight years. He was able to pull off the 5000m and 10,000m double at the Beijing 2008 Olympics and went a step further at the World Championships in Berlin in 2009 by replicating the feat, becoming the first man to ever do so and the only African man with five gold medals to his name.
The 2000s witnessed an evolution, especially for Africa’s female athletes. Still in Edmonton, Francoise Mbango Etone emerged as the first African woman to claim a medal in a field event by clinching silver in the women’s triple jump for Cameroon, while South African Hestrie Cloete became the first African woman to win a field event, carting away the gold medal in the high jump which, until then, was mainly regarded as European turf.
Dibaba also won her maiden 5000m title in Paris but came of age in Helsinki in 2005, becoming the first athlete - male or female - to win a 5000m and 10,000m double at the same championships. Tirunesh Dibaba added two more gold medals in the 10,000m in 2007 and 2013, making her the only woman to ever win two consecutive 10,000m titles.
“Whenever I remember my achievements, I really feel proud and I’m so happy about them, especially when it’s World Championships time and my name is mostly mentioned even when I’m not there,” she said. “It’s beautiful to be the most decorated female African athlete; I still have the feeling of the victory, especially when I hear it from my people and in the media.
The two-time African champion is also inspired by the fact that she and Bekele are tied for the most gold medals by an African. “I feel proud,” she said.
The Moscow 2013 World Championships produced Africa’s first female medallist in the 100m, as Cote d’Ivoire’s Murielle Ahoure finished second to Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. Kenya’s ascent in Beijing was especially aided by medals from two unlikely events: the men’s 400m hurdles and men’s javelin, courtesy of Nicholas Bett and Julius Yego, respectively.
The following year, Van Niekerk smashed Michael Johnson’s world record with a 43.03 run in Rio, becoming the only man to have won an Olympic or world 400m title from lane eight. Uganda made a statement at the 2019 World Championships with gold medals from Halimah Nakaayi in the women’s 800m and Joshua Cheptegei in the men’s 10,000m.
Not done with claiming a maiden world title, Cheptegei shattered Bekele’s world records over both 5000m and 10,000m the following year, making him the 10th man in history to hold both records simultaneously. Another star in Oregon was Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon and she has continued to rise.
She would make the podium at the next four editions - securing silver in 2015, gold in 2017, silver in 2019 and gold again in 2022. Kipyegon had become a mother in between those four championships, having welcomed her daughter Alyn in June 2018.
“She acts as an extra motivation for me,” Kipyegon said. “I am a mother, a mentor and a role model to my daughter. As the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23 beckons, African athletes have thrown down the gauntlet with some exceptional performances.
In the World Athletics Championships, the top athletes in the world compete to decide the very best. Before the World Athletics Championships, the only tournament where top athletes of the world gathered was, needless to say, the Olympic Games.
But there were growing calls among athletic circles to establish a tournament that brought together all of the world's top athletes and really did decide the very best in the world. As this tide was gaining momentum, the WA (World Athletics)* held a meeting of its council in Puerto Rico in 1978, at which it was unanimously agreed to establish the World Athletics Championships.
Initially the championships were held once every four years, in the year before the Olympics. TDK has cosponsored the event, as a bib sponsor, ever since the first World Athletics Championships in Helsinki in 1983.
Countries : Approx. Participants : Approx. ・Finland’s Tiina Lillak, who had been undefeated in the javelin all year, was in second place throughout the first five rounds of the javelin final.
・Grete Waitz won the marathon by exactly three minutes to earn the first title of the inaugural World Championships, and her only gold medal at a global track and field championships.
・With his legendary winning streak having ended earlier in the year, USA’s Edwin Moses rebounded to win the 400m hurdles in Rome in an incredibly close final with a championship record of 47.46.
・Jackie Joyner-Kersee dominated the heptathlon, leading from start to finish, to win with a championship record of 7128.
・Stefka Kostadinova almost exited the high jump final at 2.04m, needing three tries to get over that height. She was still in second place as the bar moved to 2.06m, but she cleared it on her second try.
・In an epic long jump duel with Carl Lewis, Mike Powell overtook his US teammate in the fifth round to win gold with a world record of 8.95m.
・A lot can go wrong in vertical jumps. But for Heike Henkel, her series in the 1991 high jump final was perfect.
・Before Jamaican women won individual major titles, the country earned its first senior global gold in women's event when winning the 4x100m in Tokyo.
・The women’s 100m in 1993 remains the closest track final in World Championships history. Gail Devers won by a thousandth of a second in 10.82.
・For the second World Championships in a row, the first two athletes in the women’s 400m hurdles final finished inside the world record.
