NAIROBI, July 6: Africa's big name athletes will be missing when the ninth edition of the continent's most prestigious multi-discipline competition begins in Algeria on Wednesday.
Kenya's and Ethiopia's 2004 Athens Olympic champions Ezekiel Kemboi and Meseret Defar are the only household names gunning for gold in track and field.
The Games, regarded as Africa's Olympics, have been as erratic and controversial since they began in Brazzaville, Congo, in 1965. The second edition was interrupted by a military coup in Lagos in 1973, while the fourth in Nairobi in 1987 left a legacy of corruption and poverty.—Reuters