Africa athletics body worried over age cheating ahead of Nanjing Youth Olympics Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) is concerned with the tendencies by local athletics federations to enter over aged competitors in its meetings ahead of the Youth Olympics, which will be held in Nanjing, China in August. It was discouraging, during the Africa Youth Games in Gaborone, Botswana that some athletes were older than their registered age. CAA is ready to fight against age cheating which was noticed during the Africa Youth Games, said CAA President Colonel Hamad Kalkaba Malboum. The matter came up again in the latest Africa Youth Games which took place in the capital of Botswana, where 52 African countries were involved in 21 sports. Personally, I looked at some athletes and I saw that it was not their real age, said the CAA President, adding that we need to sensitize around the athletes. A child cannot change his age by himself. This is the role of each one of us, not of an association only. President Kalkaba Malboum said efforts to establish a reliable database to check the age of the athletes were at an advanced status, while the penalty for those who are caught should be introduced. Concerns on over age athletes - including Kenya and Ethiopia, the two giants in the discipline from the continent - threatened to tarnish the second edition of the Africa Youth Games in Gaborone, Botswana. The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) used the Gaborone games as the qualifier for the Youth Olympics. Malboum admitted that it was clear that some of the athletes he had seen at the village and across the venues were too old for the event, which is eligible to athletes aged 17 years and below. Personally I have observed that the athletes in the village and across the events are too old. We need 17, but we can easily recognize the ones who are above these some even in 20s, said Kalkaba. It is only the national Olympic committees and the governments which can stop this. We as administrators are keen on rooting out this overage players and punishing them and the whole the entourage who are responsible, the managers, coaches and officials and publicize these to discourage others wanting to field overage players, he said. (Source: Xinhua)
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 05:10:00 +0000
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