African Athletes Prepare the Road to Tokyo Olympics 2020
The summer Olympics was scheduled to take place in Tokyo, Japan in 2020 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It has now been rescheduled for July 23 2021 to August 8, 2021 but will still be known as Olympics 2020.
While breakdancing will only make its appearance at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, here are some of the countries whose athletes are hard at work for 2020 in 2021. Angola will introduce four swimming debutants to the pool. Kenya is known for its brilliant track athletes but is also vying for a spot in the shooting competition at the Tokyo games.
It’s all going plainsailing for the Seychelles sailing team as they resume their training schedule. While Zimbabwe’s Triple Jump Ace Chengetayi Mapaya just smashed a longstanding national record, he is hoping to leap and bound his way to Tokyo.
The hugely popular sport of handball is also making its appearance at the Olympics, with the Angolan team boasting a new coach Filipe Cruz, who is set on giving the national side a “hand” with their preparations.
All this as Nigerian athletes are quietly preparing for the games, where they have not really excelled in recent years but with Blessing Okagbare still in the team, their fortunes may well change.
Table Tennis ace Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri is also vying for a place at the Tokyo Olympics, together with the national basketball teams of d’Tigers and d’Tigress. It will be interesting to see which African countries feature the most on the podium at Olympics 2020, in 2021.