Ghana have unveiled the torch for the 13th African Games and announced a torch relay across five African countries to drive support for the Games.
Reks Brobby, Deputy Chief Operating Officer of the Local Organising Committee for the Games, displayed the torch to the public, saying the relay would start from Accra, the country’s capital, without giving a specific date.
“The torch will stop in Egypt and continue to Kenya, Cameroon, Nigeria and South Africa,” Brobby announced, adding it would then return to Ghana and go through some regional capitals before the opening of the Games.
The torch, made by a Chinese company, arrived in Ghana last week and was presented to Ghana’s Ministry of Youth and Sports by the Confucius Institute at the University of Ghana, who helped facilitate the procedure. The 13th African Games will kick off in Ghana on March 8.
Meanwhile, the Kenyan trials for the Games, earlier scheduled for this weekend in Nairobi, have been cancelled in honour of the late marathon record holder Kelvin Kiptum.
Kiptum, the London and Chicago marathon champion, died on February 12 in a road accident that also claimed the life of his Rwandese coach Gervais Hakizimana.
“Athletics Kenya (AK) wishes to inform all athletes and the entire athletics fraternity that the trials for African Games, which were scheduled to take place on February 16 and 17, have been cancelled in honor of the late Kiptum,” the local federation said in a statement on Thursday.
AK added the selection event for the African Games that will be held in Ghana from March 18-22 will be announced in “due course.”
Kiptum, who smashed Eliud Kipchoge’s previous record of 2:01:09 by almost a minute when he won the Chicago Marathon in 2:00:35 in September 2023, will be buried on Saturday in his rural Chepkorio home in northwest Kenya.
On Monday, parliamentarians called for further investigations into the accident that also saw a third passenger, identified as Sharon Kosgey, escape with injuries as they observed a minute of silence in honour of Kiptum.
However, police confirmed on Wednesday that the cause of death of the marathon star and his coach was a result of injuries sustained in the car crash.
“The sensor of the airbag normally is at the front, and if there was no impact on the front part of the vehicle, the airbags will not move,” Keiyo South sub-county police commander Dahir Abdullahi told reporters.
“The impact (on Kiptum’s car) was on the roof...on the top of the car...so that is why we could not see the airbags out,” Abdullahi added.
Kiptum rose to prominence in December 2022 after storming to the fastest marathon debut in history when he clocked 2:01:53 to win in Valencia. Barely four months later, in April last year, he smashed the London Marathon record when he won in 2:01:25 — that was only 14 seconds shy of the then-world record of 2:01:09 run by compatriot Kipchoge at the 2022 Berlin Marathon.
In September 2023, he beat the world record with an astounding performance in Chicago. His Belgian management firm Golazo Sports had identified the flat Rotterdam Marathon course as the venue where Kiptum was to attempt a record-eligible sub-two-hour marathon on April 24.
