Team South Africa

The first of this season’s continental meets begins tomorrow with the African Championships held in Yaoundé, Cameroon. This is the first time Cameroon has played host to a major competition, marking a special moment for a country that has spent the past eight years building up an international program with bare bones resources. The country now has new equipment thanks to this competition, which should help them immensely with their training in the years to come, and we’re excited to see their athletes shine under the spotlight at home as they welcome athletes from across the continent at this event.

What’s at Stake?

All of the continental championship meets this season most importantly serve as qualifiers for world championships, which will take place this autumn in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Unlike last year, nations can only attend worlds in 2026 and 2027 if they qualify teams or individual athletes. For WAG, the African continent is allotted one team and five individual all-around spots based on this week’s competition, while for MAG, there are spots available for one team and two individual all-arounders.

Of course, medals are also up for grabs here, including for team, all-around, and apparatus competition, which is the primary goal for the junior athletes competing in Yaoundé. The first round of competition for both seniors and juniors will serve as the all-around and team final, as well as determining the athletes who will qualify to worlds, while also acting as the qualification session for apparatus finals, which will be held separately over the weekend.

Who’s Competing?

When’s It Happening?

Here’s the complete schedule. All times are local to Yaoundé.

How Can We Follow Along?

I haven’t seen any links for streams or live scores yet, but the African Gymnastics Union has been pretty active on Facebook this week, so hopefully they’ll update tomorrow morning if they have any links for us…and if not, they’ll at least be a source for finding results once the competition is complete.

Otherwise, the South African federation is generally pretty quick to post results, and the Egyptian federation is sometimes reliable on Facebook. Otherwise, we’ll keep an eye out and will share links on this Twitter thread if we find them!

Article by Lauren Hopkins