adminNgqwele Dube
THE Africa Union Sports Council Region Five Under-20 Youth Games start on Thursday with the official opening ceremony and there will be a hive of activity as most disciplines will run for the duration of the sporting showcase.
The Games schedule has been released and football will be the opening and the closing sport.
Athletics: Athletics will start on Saturday morning with three semifinal 800m events on the bill for women and eight 100m semifinals involving both men and women. In the afternoon of the same day, women will take part in the Javelin finals, long jump finals, 400m semi -finals and 3 000m finals while men would be competing in the 110m hurdles final and 400m semifinals.
On 7 December, male athletes will be involved in the 5 000m final, shotput final, 400m final and long jump final in the morning while later in the day the events on the lineup include he high jump final and 100m finals while for women there will be the 400m final, 800m final, discus final and the 100m finals.
On Monday 8 December, there will be finals for both men and women in the 400m hurdles men’s javelin final and 200m semifinals. Female athletes will also compete in the triple jump finals while the males will fight it out in the javelin finals, 1 500m finals and long jump finals.
The following day the schedule will see men taking to the track in the 800m semifinal, discus final 4x100m relay finals and 200m finals with competitions reserved for women being the 200m final shotput final, 4x100m relay finals.
On the last day of athletics on 10 December, events involving men include the triple jump finals, 800m finals, 3 000m steeple chase finals while those with female participants are the high jump finals and 4x400m finals.
Basketball: In basketball teams will play on a round robin basis with the top four proceeding to the semifinals and finals. Teams will play as follows: 6 December; Women-Lesotho vs Mozambique, Zimbabwe vs Botswana, South Africa vs Angola, Men; Mozambique vs Swaziland, South Africa vs Angola, Zimbabwe vs Malawi.
On 7 December Mozambique will take on Botswana, Lesotho play Angola, and Zimbabwe face South Africa in the women’s section while in the male category it will be South Africa vs Swaziland, Mozambique vs Malawi and Zimbabwe vs Angola. The following day its South Africa vs Botswana, Lesotho vs Zimbabwe and Mozambique vs Angola in the women’s section and in the males it will be Malawi against Swaziland, South Africa will face Zimbabwe and Angola is pitted against Mozambique.
Botswana will square up against Lesotho on 9 December in the women’s category while South Africa plays Mozambique and Zimbabwe take on Angola in the opposite category Swaziland are against Zimbabwe, Angola battles Malawi and Mozambique faces South Africa. The next day its Angola vs Botswana, South Africa vs Lesotho and Mozambique vs Zimbabwe in the female section while Angola take on Swaziland, South Africa is against Malawi and Zimbabwe square off against Mozambique. On Friday (12 December) and Saturday (13 December) there will be semifinals and finals respectively.
Boxing: Preliminaries will be played from 5 December to 7 December followed by the quarterfinals the next day, semifinals on 9 December and finals on 10 December, all matches will be at the Large City Hall.
Judo: Judo event will take place on Saturday 7 December, with boys competing in the 55kg, 60kg, 66kg and 73kg while girls slug it out in the 44kg, 48kg, 52kg and 57kg. Heavyweights will face each other on 8 December with the boys battling in the 81kg, 90kg, 100kg and 100kg+ sections and girls will slug it out in the 70kg, 78kg, and 78kg+ categories.
Tennis: The tennis singles and doubles’ first round will be on 6 and 7 December, on 8 December it will be the round of 16 in the singles and doubles’ round of eight. The doubles’ semifinals and singles quarterfinals will be held the next day with the finals and semifinals respectively being held on 10 December while singles finals and third/fourth place play-offs taking place the following day.
Online Reporter