Athletics Africa Magazine

Vanguard - Sports : HISSES AS ALGERIA DETHRONE NIGERIA : ‘Why Nigeria failed in Algiers’— Brown Ebewele Brown Ebewele, the man who worked tirelessly for Nigeria’s victory at the Abuja Games in 2003 arrived Algiers towards the end of the games here and asked Nigerians to graciously accept defeat and plan ahead for the next games in Zambia. And the games ends....................

Watch the men's and women's 400m race yesterday in Algiers. :: COJA 2007 :: Site Officiel des 9 èmes jeux africains - Alger du 11 AU 23 juiller 2007

AthleticsAfrica.Com - All Africa Games 2007 track and field news

Last Sunday in Sheffield at the Norwich Union Super Grand Prix , I came face to face with the Blade Runner - South Africa paralympic star and double amputee Oscar Pistorius . Chatting with him you get a feeling of his passion to live his life to the fullest. A simple and very polite guy. I just wondered why so many people especially the arrogant British press refused to give this brave guy a chance to achieve the best he could ever be. Why they are so self preserving and so worried that this guy, born without fibulae in both legs due to a congenital condition, would one day beat their underachieving able-bodied athletes. Is it petty jealousy? or maybe overzealous xenophobia? The BBC also describes him as angry . I was at the mixed zone after his 400m race, when one disillusioned gentleman who works for UK Athletics gleefully announced the blade runner had been disqualified for running out of his lane in the 400m claiming "now he has nothing to prove" . Looking back at all th...

Watching the first leg of the IAAF Golden League in Oslo two weeks, I was completely astounded to see another Nigerian hurdler in Spanish colours. This was not Glory Alozie, who ditched the country in 2001 after winning silver medal at the Sydney Olympics, but a young lovely talent - Josephine Onyia. She came 5th in a modest 12.93seconds , but last week took the women's 100m hurdles at the 46th Zlata Tetra -Golden Spike, IAAF Grand Prix meet in Ostrava with 12.91 seconds. Nigerian athletics technical director, Sunday Bada could only lament at another talent drain. He described change of nationality as another medal lost at next month's All Africa Games. Bada told the Nigerian Daily Champion newspapers: "Our athletes are leaving in great numbers, we must have to stem this trend otherwise that is how we would be losing our best athletics talents." Onyia, who currently lives and trains with Alozie in Valencia has a season's best of 12.82 seconds over the 100m hu...