The 17th African Senior Athletics Championship has concluded, Ghada Abdel-Kader reports from Nyayo Stadium in Nairobi Kenya won the overall medal standings with 10 gold, seven silver and eight bronze medals in Nairobi. Nigeria came second with eight gold, five silver and five bronze, while South Africa came in third place with six gold, seven silver and six bronze medals. Egypt came in fourth, with four gold, two silver and three bronze medals. In the men's 200-metre race, Egyptian sprinter Amr Seoud amazed spectators with his most outstanding performance. He finished in first and broke a national and Arab record at 20.36 seconds. Meite Ben Youssef from Cote d'Ivore was second with his best season performance at 20.39 seconds. South Africa's Simon Magakwe came third with his season best time of 20.56 seconds. In men's 100-metre race, Ben Youssef won first with his best performance at 10.08 seconds. Zakari came second with his season best of 10.12 seconds. Magakwe came third with his season best of 10.14 seconds. Meanwhile, Seoud came in fourth with a new national time record of 10.18 seconds. Seoud's assistant track and field coach, Karim Abdel Wahab, at the University of Northern Colorado Athletics told Al-Ahram Weekly, "The result was amazing for us. 10.18 is a new Egyptian record. Internationally, this is A- standard world championship qualifier level, which has never happened in Egyptian history. The A-standard is 10.21 seconds. I am very satisfied with the result." "We are waiting to see if Seoud will gain support from the head of the National Sports Council, Hassan Sakr. If he thinks Seoud is worthy of support, I think we should spend the coming two years mainly training in America, competing internationally and meeting the national team. We have two major competitions in the coming two years for the 13th World Athletics Championships 2011 in Daegu, South Korea, and the Olympics Games in London 2012," added Abdel-Wahab. In the discus, Egyptian thrower Omar El-Ghazali won first with 59.30 metres and Yasser Farag came second with 58.71 metres. Victor Hogan from South Africa finished third with 58.11 metres. El-Ghazali set a national record and won the All Africa Games title in 2007. He was the first Egyptian to reach a world championship final, in Osaka in 2007. El-Ghazali said: "I have won the African Senior title for four years now. This year was a season full of injures. I tore a hamstring in my left leg. I haven't played for five month now. This is my first competition this year." El-Ghazali is focusing on the World Intercontinental Championships 2010 in Croatia. He added: "I have been now for two months without a coach. I have been trained with technical expert Vésteinn Hafsteinsson for five years. I travelled to several training camps with him. This is not working anymore. We have a very serious problem in funding, and the budget of the federation can't afford this, but Hafsteinsson insisted on a contract, so he left me."In the men's hammer throw, Egyptian thrower Mohsen El-Anani won first place with 74.72 metres while Mustafa El-Gamal took third with 71.40 metres. Hassan Mahmoud came fourth with 68.43 metres. South African Chris Harmse came second with 72.56 metres. Harmse claimed four consecutive African titles from the year 2002 until 2008. He has broken the African record seven times and holds the championship record for both the African Championships and All Africa Games. He also won his 15th consecutive national hammer throw title at the South Africa Senior Championships. El-Anani said: "It is my first time to win a gold medal in the African Championship, but I won silver in Bambous in 2006 and silver in the All Africa Games. I am so happy to be the one to beat unbeaten champion Harmse and achieve the first Egyptian gold in the hammer throw in this championship." In the javelin event, Ihab El-Sayed won first with a throw of 78.02 metres. Gerhardus Pienaar from South Africa took second with 75.96 metres while Kenyan Julius Yego finished third with 74.51 metres. "It is my second time to participate in the African Championship. The first time was in the African Junior Athletics Championship in Ouagadougou, Burkina-Faso, in 2007. I won bronze. In 2008, the competition level was low, but this year I had fierce competition between world champions from South Africa and Kenya, but I managed to win today," said El-Sayed. Egyptian athletes Mohamed Deif-Allah came fourth with 7.89 metres in the long jump, Karim Lofti sixth with 2.05 metres in the high jump, and Amr Shuman seventh with 16.02 metres in the triple jump. In the women's events, in the hammer throw, Senegal's Amy Sene won gold with a national record of 64.11 metres. Egypt's national and Arab champion Marwa Hussein won silver with a season best performance of 62.36 metres. Togo's Florence Ezeh took bronze achieving a national record of 57.94 metres. Hussein has won African titles in each of the last four African championships.She said: "This African championship is the most powerful I have ever seen. The performance of the athletes is very high. It is also an important championship, because only gold and silver medal winners will be selected to compete for Africa during September's Intercontinental Championship in Croatia. Gold medal winners also qualify to participate in the 13th World Athletics Championships in South Korea in 2011." In the women's discus, Elizna Naude from South Africa came first with 56.74 metres, Suzanne Kazai from Cote d'Ivore second with 55.53 metres, while Egypt's Sarah Hassib took third with 46.51 metres. In the women's javelin, South Africa's Sunette Viljoen took first with a throw of 63.33 metres while Justine Robbeson came second with 60.24 metres and Egyptian thrower Hanaa Omar finished third with 55.14 metres.
