Fourteen of the Seventeen events scheduled for Day of the Africa Senior Athletics Championships in Asaba Nigeria have been cancelled, the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) have announced.
There will be competition in three events, which have also been re-scheduled for afternoon session.
The Women’s 100m heats; men’s 100m heats and 10,000m final events, which were scheduled to start from 8:00 GMT will now take place, starting at 14:00 GMT.
In an email sent to the participating countries, General secretary of the CAA, Lamine Faty, announced the cancellation became necessary due to organisational challenges.
“Due to some organizing problems it was decided to cancel Day one (1) of the competitions programme for round one (1) of the 100m events, Men and Women and the 10000m Men final event. There will be a reschedule of the rest of the program to sit into the remaining four days,” part of the email read.
Several athletes and officials are still stranded in a Lagos airport, unable to find a connecting flight to Asaba, venue for the competition.
Team Kenya have yet to arrive in Asaba, with their federation president threatening to pull out of the competition.
LATEST: @Athletics_Kenya 🇰🇪 threatens to quit the Africa Senior Athletics Championships. Team has been held at Lagos domestic airport with no flights to Asaba since midday (local time) yesterday. So many other teams including Uganda 🇺🇬 affected. #Asaba2018 pic.twitter.com/h5LmcGLwXp
— Darren Allan Kyeyune (@AllanDarren) July 31, 2018
Morocco, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, and several other countries only arrived on Tuesday evening, only a few hours to the start of competition, having been stuck at the airport for days.
Ivorian sprinter Marie Josee Ta Lou arrived in Asaba on Monday but without her luggage and only after her country’s federation president threatened to pull out of the competition.
New Schedule for Day 1