Asia Triathlon

The members of the African Triathlon Union (ATU) had their Annual General Meeting at La Coco Beach hotel in Mauritius this past weekend.

At the meeting the membership application of two new federations, Tunisia and Nigeria were approved while negotiations with more federations are in the pipe line.

In her report the President stated that the ATU had a very successful season with big benefits for both the athletes and officials of Africa.

The 2006 BG Triathlon World Cup in Richards Bay was the highlight on the events calendar and also the first ever World Cup event that took place on the African continent. This very popular race also forms part of the Olympic qualifying events. The African Triathlon Cup series with events in Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mauritius and Kenya brought more international athletes to the continent while the 2007 series creates better opportunities for African athletes with a series prize pool for ATU ranked athletes.

The priority for the next four years will be to expose the sport to more countries in Africa with participation in the 2011 All African Games in Zambia.

On the athlete development side athletes from Zimbabwe, Mauritius and South Africa attended the BG Triathlon Junior Camp in 2006 in Hungary while a Youth camp was held in Zimbabwe later in the year. Two athletes from Africa raced in the 2006 BG Triathlon World Cup event in Beijing under ITU sport development’s Team GB Elite Athlete Development Programme and one athlete from Africa was elected on the BG Scholarship program for the 2007 season. In 2007 there will be more coaching opportunities for juniors with the International camp again in Hungary and a junior continental camp in December in Africa.

The first ever Coach Accreditation course will take place in April 2007 and will qualify thirty level 1 Triathlon Coaches and facilitators from eight African Countries. That will be followed with an ITU Workshop for Event Organizers in May in Richards Bay.

The main focus of the ATU in 2007 is the improvement of the Technical level of continental events – with the support of the ITU Event Development program two successful technical workshops were hosted for organizers of continental events.

The ATU also announced the African Sprint Triathlon Championships that will take place on 12th of May, 2007 in Richards Bay. The event will take place on the same course as the 2007 Richards Bay BG Triathlon World Cup and on the day before the World Cup event.

Other highlights of the season will be the ITU Triathlon African Cup events in Namibia, Zimbabwe and Kenya in October and November 2007.