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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
THE African Union Sports Council (Ausc) Region 5 Ministers’ Troika will meet early next month to determine if the Youth Games set for Maseru, Lesotho, in December will go ahead or not.

The Games were postponed in December last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic that swept across member states.

The decision to postpone the Games by 12 months was taken by the same Ministers’ Troika in July last year.

The Troika is chaired by Lesotho’s Minister of Gender, Youth, Sport and Recreation, Likeleli Tampane, and includes Malawian Minister of Youth and Sport Ulemu Msungama as well as Botswana’s Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development Tumiso Rakgare.

Following a thorough risk assessment as guided by the Region 5 risk management framework, the ministers resolved to postpone the Games by 12 months to December 2021, but the dates will be further reviewed and a determination made.

“The Ministers Troika is scheduled to meet in the first week of next month to further assess the status in view of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Ausc Region 5 chief executive officer Stanley Mutoya in a brief interview from his base in Botswana.

“The Games were postponed from December 2020 to December 2021. We are therefore making plans for the Games to be held from 3 to 12 December 2021 in Maseru, Lesotho. We have scheduled 11 sport codes: athletics, basketball (including 3×3), boxing, football, gymnastics, judo, netball, swimming, taekwondo, tennis and volleyball,” said Mutoya.

The Ausc Region 5 Youth Games are staged every two years.

Hosting by member countries is on a mandatory rotational basis in alphabetic order.

The Games have been held consistently since the inaugural tournament in Maputo, Mozambique, in 2004 and bring together about 2 000 Under-20 athletes from the region.