CAA Championships

The 16th edition of the CAA Championships ended yesterday. South Africa topped the medal table with 22 (12g, 2s, 8b), Nigeria were second with 19 (7g, 7s, 5b) , Ethiopia third with 15 (6g, 6s, 3b) and Kenya fourth with 16 (5g, 5s, 6b).

Having spoken to one of the Kenyan coaches at length on Saturday, he told me that he was expecting Kenyan to win gold in the women's 800m despite the presence of the Maputo Express aka Maria Mutola. Pamela Chelimo turned on the afterburners with 200m to go to fulfill her coach's prediction. She then ran a storming leg in the 4x400m to earn Kenya a silver medal. A former African junior champion at 400m, she's one to watch in Beijing. It was good to see Kenya with a 200m sprint finalist by the name Joyce Zachary and the coach said that there should be more of them by the time the next World Athletics Championships come round. To the dismay of my Nigerian companion, Nigeria only won a bronze in the women's 200m, South Africa claimed the men and women's 200m crowns. However, Nigeria dominated the women's shot put, winning gold and silver.

Botswana's Kgosiema Kabelo put on a masterful display in the high jump, entering the competition at 2.24m and winning the event with a world class 2.34m which was also a national record.

Tirunesh Dibaba led Ethiopia's clean sweep of the women's 10,000m and for 25 laps, the stadium pulsated to the wall of the sound generated by the 35,000 capacity crowd - it was a sight to behold, seeing the crowd "bouncing". On the decibel scale, the women's 10,000m was off the charts, closely followed by the men's 5,000m where Kenenisa Bekele held off Kenya's Isaac Songok to take gold. Kenya got a measure of revenge in the men's 1,500m, winning gold and silver.

Just before the men's 5,000m, Haile Gebrselassie was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Leeds Metropolitan University and he interrupted his lap of honour to give Kenenisa a hub and no doubt, a few words of encouragement.

I had an illuminating tête-à-tête with Nigeria's African 100m champion, Olusoji Fasuba, and he dropped a few bombshells. To quote Dwain Chambers, "if the drug users have an off day", then I expect Olu to do the business in Beijing.

Kenya is set to host the next edition of the CAA championships and they have a lot to live upto.