Under Auspices of Min. of Youth… African Weightlifting Tournament Takes Place Thursday

By: Maydaa Abou-El-Naddar and Ibrahim El-Shawarby

Under the Auspices of Dr. Ashraf Sobhy, Minister of Youth and Sports, Cairo will host the African Weightlifting Championships next Thursday 25 April and will run until 29, where the winners get to book their place in the upcoming Olympic Games in Tokyo.

177 players representing 15 African countries will be competing most notably, Ehab, Sarah Samir, Naama Said, Shaima Khalaf of Egypt, as well as Tunisian Karem Ben Ania and Ghafran Bakhir (the first Youth Olympics), also Walid Wadim of Algeria.

The tournament includes a number of weight pisions including 10 for women (from 45 kg to 87+ kg), in addition to 10 for men from 55 kg to 109+ kilos.

Mohamed Mahgoub, Chairman of the Egyptian Weightlifting Federation, said: "We are very happy to cooperate with Royal in creating support for inpidual games and their champions because inpidual games are the pedestal of sports in Egypt as a result of the most successful are often athletes of inpidual based sports.

"We believe in the innate talent of the Egyptian player, which qualifies him to surpass players from developed countries in terms of physical and moral potential. Egypt has big names in inpidual games such as champion Mohamed Ihab, holder of world records in weightlifting, in addition to Neima Saeed, who receive very little support compared to other nations.

Mohamed Gad, Managing Director of Royal Sports Marketing, the main sponsor of the championship, said that the tournament is the second marketing rights of the company, after the President of Morocco Cup to get Royal to market the African Championship for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.