Every year we see various sport events hosted in Africa. Perhaps one of the most watched sporting events to take place in the continent was the men’s FiFA world cup in 2010. Let’s have a look through the sporting events happening in Africa in 2023.
Football
AFCON 2023 – Ivory Coast
The 2023 AFCON will be hosted in Ivory coast. The Ivorian government has worked towards having 6 stadiums to host the event. The host cities will be Ivory Coast’s major urban centre Abidjan, the country’s second largest city Bouake, the capital Yamoussoukro, and Ivory Coast’s second largest port city San Pedro.
Although it’s being branded as the 2023 AFCON, the event will actually take place in 2024. Originally, the tournament was supposed to take place in the summer of 2023, but due to Ivory Coast’s rainy season in June/July, CAF president Patrice Motsepe decided to move the tournament to january 2024 instead.
The AFCON qualifiers will resume in March 2023, with matches taking place across Africa.
2022 African Nations championship (CHAN) – Algeria
Algeria is currently hosting the African Nations championship across 4 of its cities, Algiers, Oran, Constantine and Annaba.
The tournament was postponed from 2022 to 2023 january-february.
Already 2 teams have qualified for the quarter finals, Algeria and Mozambique – we will find out the other 6 teams to join them on Tuesday 24th January 2023.
The final will take place on saturday 4th february at the Nelson Mandela stadium in the city of Baraki.
What makes this tournament special is how it focuses on African talent. In AFCON we tend to find the teams that dominate are made up of a lot of players who play in european league whereas CHAN is only played by players who play African league football. This in turn is helping grow local talent, is giving African players exposure, and most importantly, is prioritizing the growth of African football. This is a special year for African football following CHAN’s current champions Morocco and their amazing run at the 2022 fifa world cup.
Multi-Sport
2023 African games – Ghana
Also known as the African Olympics, the 2023 African games is to be held in 3 cities across Ghana in the summer of 2023, with the dates soon to be confirmed. The 3 cities are Ghana’s capital Accra, Kumasi and Cape Coast. The other nations that put a bid to host this event were Nigeria and Burkina Faso, but it was Ghana that won the election and was granted the rights to host by the African Union.
Ghana had plans to build a new stadium to host the events, but these plans were disrupted by covid 19. It was then decided that the indoor events will take place at the $145 million Borteyman sports complex instead. Inside the Borteyman sports complex you can find a 400m athletics track with a football pitch in the middle and a 500 people spectator stand, a competition swimming pool that can hold 1000 spectators, two 8 lane swimming pools, a dome to host combat sports, a multi purpose sports hall for indoor sports and 5 tennis courts with 1000 seats.
The competition features 26 sports, including canoeing, cycling, equestrian, fencing, shooting, and snooker, to name a few.
At the 2019 African Games in Morocco, 4386 athletes from 53 African nations competed, and the statistics have since increased, with 5000 athletes from 55 African countries expected to compete.
This event is very important for African athletes because it feeds into the Olympic games in Paris 2024. Athletes will not only have the opportunity to prove themselves in their continent, but they will also compete for a spot in the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Tobi Amusan, the current African games champion in the 100m hurdles, is one athlete to watch out for at the 2023 African Games. The Nigerian 100m hurdler had a fantastic year in 2022. She won the African championships, the Commonwealth Games, and the World Championships, where she also set a world record by completing the 100m hurdle sprint in 12.12 seconds, making it look easy. She was named Africa’s best female athlete in 2022 by the Confederation of African Athletes (CAA).
Indian Ocean Island games 2023 – Madagascar
This is a multisport event sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee for Indian Ocean islands. This tournament will be held in Madagascar in July 2023. Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Comoros, Mayotte, Reunion, and The Maldives will take part in 2023.
More than 2000 athletes will compete in over 19 sports.
The most successful island is Reunion, with 584 gold medals, followed by Mauritius with 405 gold medals and Madagascar with 353.
This tournament has historical significance. It was created in 1976 to increase the sports participation in the competing islands, and even more importantly, to encourage solidarity and friendship between the participating islands.
Netball
2023 Netball world cup – South Africa
For the first time ever, the netball world cup will be held in Africa. The tournament will be hosted from July to August 2023 at the Cape Town international convention centre, South Africa.
History is also being made as the competition is being recorded and produced by an all female crew from SuperSport, a South African broadcasting company.
This tournament will feature 16 teams, four of which are African: South Africa, Uganda, Malawi, and Zimbabwe.
Although no African nation has ever won the netball world cup, recently African teams have been making a few highlights in the game. In 2022, Uganda shocked the world when they beat the world number one & champions Australia at the fast 5 netball world series. At the 2015 netball world cup, Malawi international Mwai Kumwenda finished the competition as the top scorer with 321 goals.
As of November 2022, world netball ranked 20 national netball teams. South Africa, Malawi and Uganda were ranked 5th, 6th and 7th, while Zimbabwe and Zambia were ranked 13th and 17th.
Outside of Africa, teams to look out for include 4th ranked Jamaica, and 11th ranked Trinidad and Tobago.
Cricket
2023 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup – South Africa
The women’s T20 cricket world cup will be held in three cities in South Africa. Newland Cricket Ground, St Georges Park Cricket Ground, and Boland Park are among the venues. South Africa automatically qualified as hosts, and they will be joined by 9 other nations. South Africa was ranked third in the world in the ICC Women’s ODI Rankings as of December 2022. Zimbabwe, in 13th place, was the only other African country to make the list.
South Africa are no strangers to hosting cricketing events. In 2003, the hosted the men’s cricket world cup alongside co-hosts Kenya and Zimbabwe, and they are to co-host the 2027 men’s cricket world cup with Namibia.
South Africa will play two world cup warm-up games against England women and Pakistan women before the tournament begins on February 10, 2023.
Traditionally, Cricket in South Africa was considered the sport of white men, specifically English speaking white men, but over the years, the players and audience have diversified. For example, Temba Bavua, a black South African cricketer, captains the South African team in white ball cricket and also serves as vice captain of the South African test cricket team.
Table tennis
2023 ITTF world table tennis championships – South Africa
2023 is a big year for table tennis with many tournaments scheduled to take around the world.
South Africa won the bid to host the year’s biggest table tennis event, the 2023 ITTF world table tennis championships finals, which will be held in Durban in May 2023. South Africa received 90% of the vote to host, defeating Germany. This will be the first time this prestigious event has been held on the African continent since Egypt hosted it in 1939.
The draws for the competition have not yet been made as players are still competing in qualifying matches, but the African players who have made the rankings and may compete in the finals are from: Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Egypt, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Mauritius, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Togo, and Tunisia.
If they make it through the qualifiers, Africa has some good candidates to represent their countries. Quadri Aruna of Nigeria is the highest-ranked African male player. The 34-year-old right-handed player is ranked 14th and has won 71% of his matches thus far. He is frequently referred to as the continent’s best player. Quadri reached the quarterfinals of the 2016 Rio Olympics, defeating some well-known players along the way. He received the male table tennis star award in 2014.
Dina Meshref of Egypt is the top-ranked female player. The 28-year-old left-handed player is also known as the ‘African table tennis queen’. She won her first African Cup title in 2011, and she went on to win it seven more times between 2014 and 2020.
Egypt is a strong table tennis nation, and their table tennis future appears to be in good hands, as the top male and female youth table tennis players are both Egyptian. Hana Goda, 15, is currently ranked third in the world with a 68% win percentage, while Marwan Gamal, 18, is ranked 45th with a 59% win percentage.
Note: The following are some of the major sporting events taking place in Africa; however, there are many other events taking place on the continent that are not listed above, some of which are national and some of which are international.
