Activities have kick started in the beautiful island of Mauritius in the African Senior Athletes Championship as african teams battle for a top medals table position at the end of the battle. The AAC is a biennial track and field events organised by the continent’s governing body, The Confederation of African Athletes. Just like the world championship, the AAC use to include marathon events but this was discontinued in the year 2000.
Dakar, Senegal hosted the first edition for Africa far back in the year 1979. From 1979 to 1993, the event was never stable during this nine event period as it was hosted at irregular intervals. For organisational purposes, the competition was made a biennial event in the year 1996 when the 10th edition was held.
Now Mauritius is hosting the 22nd edition this year. As widely participated as the AAC is now, only 4 different overall winners have been recorded in this competition as Nigeria top the number of overall winner along side South Africa who are tied on 8 winning times. Nigeria also won the very first edition held in Dakar.
Other winners of the competition are Kenya who have won it 4 times in the past and Algeria who won it ones and the only the time they hosted in year 2000.
The overall all time medal standings also sees Nigeria being at the top with a total gold medals of 155 over time. Kenya is second with a total of 144 to thier names. South Africa sit in the third spot with 129 gold medal, Algeria have accumulated 72 gold medals ever and Morocco who sit in the 5th overall position are with 52 gold medals.
