All-Africa Games Squabble Hits CISA -- On the Scene

(ATR) African leaders of sport know they have a major problem. What they don’t yet have is a solution.

The question of ownership has been raised repeatedly in relation to the All-Africa Games - notably at the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa meeting in Bangkok last year - and those questions reared their head again Saturday at CISA, though the group came no closer to a resolution.

"It is that element that is bringing confusion … who has ownership. We fight over that word for nothing," said Ugandan sports minister Charles Bakkabulindi, also a vice president of the Union of African Sports Confederations (UCSA).

The UCSA has been behind the planning of the All-Africa Games in the past, but many within the African NOCs and their umbrella organization ANOCA believe the Olympic committees should control the event.

Bakkabulindi and other sports ministers contend that, due to mismanagement of funds in the past, the governments should have a hand in ensuring public money assigned to the games is well spent.

IAAF president and IOC member Lamine Diack, a native of Senegal, said, "If we want to solve the problem, we have to do things as they are done on other continents," alluding to the coordination of the first European Games set to take place this summer.

Diack, the most prominent member of the Olympic movement at this week’s conference in Kigali, Rwanda, spoke passionately for several minutes from the front row of the audience and received an ovation as he finished speaking.

"We don’t know who is going to organize the games after Congo, so it’s confusing."

The next All-Africa Games is scheduled to take place this September in Brazzaville, Congo. It will mark the 50th anniversary of the first All-Africa Games, also in Brazzaville.

Diack Hopeful for U.S. 2021 Champs Bid

(ATR) The IAAF president appears confident another bid for the IAAF World Championships will come out of the United States.

Eugene, Oregon lost to Doha, 15 votes to 12, in the final round of voting for 2019 hosting rights in November.

"After that, [Eugene] said, ‘We are ready to do it in ‘21,’" said Lamine Diack on Saturday night after the close of CISA.

No official announcement has come out of Eugene. Organizing committee chief Vin Lananna told The Oregonian last month that the group is exploring a bid for 2021.

The bid’s potential would hinge on a renovation of Hayward Field, the proposed Eugene venue on the campus of the University of Oregon. It has 22,000 seats at the moment, but would expand to 35,000 - with added video boards, concession stands and modern media facilities - to host the championships.

"You have a lot of tracks," Diack said of the U.S., "but you have no stadium of athletics."

The U.S. has many stadiums for football and American football, but few - if any - have enough room for a full track.

The 81-year old IOC member also expressed optimism that a deal to broadcast a U.S. championships could be brokered with Olympic TV rights holder NBC, giving athletics a major boost in the U.S.

"Track and field triumphs," said Diack of a possible deal. "It’s relevant."

Written by Nick Devlinin Kigali

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