The Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the 13th African Games, has announced the inclusion of arm wrestling, field hockey, netball and squash to the sporting activities for the event scheduled for 2023 in Accra.
This was disclosed on Friday at a press briefing after the maiden Joint Technical Committee Meeting by the LOC.
The news was received with great joy by practitioners of the four sporting activities after a long push for their inclusion following the conviction that they were potential medal-winning sports.
Arm wrestling would make its maiden appearance at the event while netball and squash would be making their return after 12 and 20 years’ absence, respectively.
In all, 25 disciplines would feature in the Accra 2023 event. They include, athletics, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, boxing chess, cricket, cycling, fencing, football, handball, judo and karate-do.
The rest are rugby, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, volleyball, weightlifting and teqball which was listed as the only demonstration sport.
Addressing the press on the criteria for the selection of the disciplines, Executive Chairman of the LOC, Dr Kwaku Ofosu-Asare said the process began with the issuance of Forms of Interest to 33 sporting federations to fill and return to the LOC for further assessment.
That, he said, required the federations to indicate the qualification processes for their various teams and individual sports, considering the number of teams and individual athletes to be based in Accra for the Games.
“The LOC considered availability of facilities required for the Games, availability of the number of technical officials required, the contribution of various international confederations towards the disciplines, expectations of various sports disciplines of the LOC, milestones reached by various sports disciplines with respect to qualification to major international competitions and the expected outcomes of the African Games,” he said.
He urged the federations of the sporting disciplines to work hard to make the nation proud as they competing with the rest of Africa come 2023.
BY MICHAEL D. ABAYATEYE
