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Tunisia is scheduled to host the next edition of the African Beach Games in 2023 after being approved as a host at the General Assembly of the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ACNOA).
The ANOCA General Assembly took place today in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, with some participants attending virtually amid the COVID-19 pandemic and armed conflict in northern Ethiopia.
Among the topics discussed are the African Games and the African Beach Games.
Tunisia will become the second host of the African Beach Games, with the island of Sal in Cape Verde hosting the inaugural event in 2019.
Eleven sports were on the program last year, including track and field, 3×3 basketball, beach handball, beach soccer, beach tennis, beach volleyball, coastal rowing, freestyle soccer, karate kata, kite surfing, and open water swimming.
A progress report was then presented on the 2023 African Games, which is scheduled to take place in Ghana.
The country was awarded the event in October 2018 and more than 5,000 athletes from more than 50 countries are expected to compete.
Final dates have yet to be announced for the event, which is expected to take place in Accra, Kumasi and Cape Coast.
The ANOCA General Assembly also featured a speech by Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde.
“Sport, as we all know, is a powerful tool for unity and peace,” he said.
“By playing sports, we learn the basic lessons of life: how to work with others to achieve a common goal, how to follow the rules, how to strategize and win, and equally important is learning to lose and make room for others to have. Your day.
“We must think beyond sports and identify ways to harness their influence and resources to engage and empower the youth of Africa.
“You can count on Ethiopia to stand by your side in achieving this goal.”
ACNOA President Mustapha Berraf had met with Zewde in the run-up to the General Assembly.
Ethiopian long distance racing legend Haile Gebrselassie was another guest at the event, where he was joined by longtime rival Paul Tergat from Kenya.
The 47-year-old was a two-time Olympic champion in the 10,000 meters, triumphing at Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000, with Tergat second in both races.
The ACNOA Code of Ethics and a new constitution were debated during the General Assembly.
Changes to the two documents were delayed at last year’s meeting in Doha due to objections from the National Olympic Committee (NOC).
A working group established by Berraf and led by Sam Ramsamy, an honorary member of the South African International Olympic Committee (IOC), presented the updated documents, but some NOCs responded with objections.
This included the NOC of Namibia claiming that the Code of Ethics was different from that used by the IOC, while Rwanda suggested that there was a need to focus more on promoting women in sport and that the ANOC Ethics Commission should have a equitable division of men and women.
A suggestion was also made to expand the Ethics Commission to five people, as well as one to improve the French translations of the documents.
These objections ultimately resulted in ANOCA’s new Constitution and Code of Ethics not being approved, even provisionally, in 2019, and further discussions were postponed until this year.
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