African Athletics in Times of Change: From Grassroots to the Global Stage

As the Sports Africa 2020 conference is postponed, Sports Africa Network has decided to hold a series of online discussion sessions. We have held two roundtables so far, the first one on African football (focused on the documentary “Sadio Mané, Made in Senegal“) and the second on African basketball (focused on development, gender, and migration). The third roundtable on July 11, 2020 @ 3:00-4:30 GMT will focus on African Athletics in a Time of Change: From Grassroots to the Global Stage.

This third roundtable aims to bring together athletes, coaches and officials from across the continent to discuss:

1. 1. The state of athletics across the continent (including infrastructure, athlete development, and local and elite competitions) as well as in high-profile locations, such as Iten, Kenya and Bekoji, Ethiopia
  2. Athletic aspirations: How aspiring athletes break into the international arena, including the institutions and connections that facilitate international success as well as the type of training necessary for athletes to rise to the top. What can be done to ensure that more athletes and all those involved in the sport earn a decent and sustainable living?
  3. Women’s athletics: The state of women’s athletics, including both opportunities and challenges (financial, social, cultural, political)
  4. Community ties and development: How does successful running lift up particular communities and to what degree, and in what ways, are athletes obligated to give back to support the community.
  5. Funding, doping, and politics

Panelists
Isaac Makwala, Olympian and Commonwealth Games Champion (400m), Botswana
Justice Dipeba, 200m Olympian and Coach, Botswana
Jepkorir-Rose Chepyator-Thomson, University of Georgia, US-Kenya
Norman Ontong, Coach and founder of Fit2Run, South Africa
Louzzane Coetzee, Women’s 1500m and World Record Holder 5000m Paralympian, South Africa
Anthony Koffi, World Class Sprint and Athletics Coach, Cote d’Ivoire
Aziz Daouda, Technical and Development Director, Confederation of African Athletics (CAA), Morocco
Ed Neufville, 400m hurdles Olympian, Liberia

Special Guest
Frank Fredericks, Olympian 100m and 200m, Namibia

Moderator:
Dr. Martha Saavedra, University of California,Berkeley, USA

Click here to register for the Zoom call

The session will also be available on Facebook Live https://www.facebook.com/groups/SportsAfrica/

In preparation for this roundtable, we invite you to watch and read the following:

Town of Runners

Born to run

Sub-2 Nike documentary

The Bekoji 100 Film –

Cosponsored by:

- Center for African Studies, UC Berkeley -A US Department of Education, Title VI National Resource Center
- West Africa Research Center (WARC), Dakar Senegal
- Ohio University Center for International Studies
- Ohio University, Africa@OHIO
- Ohio University Office of Inclusion and Diversity, Multicultural Center
- Black Student Cultural Programming Board, Ohio University