African Championships in Athletics explained

Sport:	Athletics
Founded:	1979
Teams:	54
Continent:	Africa (CAA)
Champion:	Last winners lists

The African Championships in Athletics is a continental athletics event organized by the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA), the continental association for the sport in Africa. Since its inaugural edition in 1979 it was at first organised intermittently with nine editions held in fourteen years until 1993. Following the tenth edition in 1996 it has been organised biennially on even years, and is always held in the same year as the Summer Olympics. The 21st edition was held in Asaba, Nigeria in August 2018.

The event featured a men's marathon from 1979 to 1990. Following it being dropped from the programme an African Marathon Championships was briefly contested.^[1] The event programme has roughly matched that of the IAAF World Championships in Athletics, with the exception of the 50 kilometres race walk.^[2]

The following list shows changes to the event programme:

1982, women's heptathlon and men's 20 km walk were added to replace women's pentathlon and men's 10 km walk.
1985, women's 10,000 m was added.
1988, women's 5 km walk was added. Discontinued since 1998.
1992, women's triple jump was added. Men's marathon, held from 1979 to 1990 (with the exception of 1984) was permanently dropped.
1996, women's 5000 metres was added.
1998, women's hammer throw was added. Women's 3000 metres was permanently removed from the programme, while men's 3000 metres event was held for the only time.
2000, women's pole vault was added. Women's 10 km walk was also added before being held again in 2002 and discontinued.
2004, women's 3000 m steeplechase and 20 km walk were added.
2022, mixed 4 × 400 metres relay was added.

Championships

Edition	Year	City	Country	Date	Venue	Events	Nations	Athletes	Top of the medal table
1	1979	Dakar	Senegal	2–5 August	Stade Demba Diop	39	24	251	Nigeria
2	1982	Cairo	Egypt	25–28 August	Cairo International Stadium	39	18	297	Kenya
3	1984	Rabat	Morocco	12–15 July		38	28	298	Kenya
4	1985	Cairo	Egypt	15–18 August	Cairo International Stadium	40	24	324	Nigeria
5	1988	Annaba		29 August – 2 September	Stade 19 Mai 1956	41	30	341	Nigeria
6	1989		Nigeria	4–8 August	Lagos National Stadium	41	27	308	Nigeria
7			Egypt	3–6 October		41	23	218	Nigeria
8			Mauritius	25–28 June		41	24	336	South Africa
9				23–27 June		41	32	294	South Africa
10			Cameroon	13–16 June		40	33	307	Nigeria
11			Senegal	18–22 August		42	39	395	Nigeria
12			Algeria	10–14 July		43	43	411	Algeria
13			Tunisia	6–10 August		43	42	417	South Africa
14			Congo	14–18 July		44	42	431	South Africa
15			Mauritius	9–13 August		44	41	456	South Africa
16				30 April – 4 May		44	42	543	South Africa
17			Kenya	28 July – 1 August		44	46	588	Kenya
18				27 June – 1 July		44	47	569	Nigeria
19		Marrakech^[3]	Morocco	10–14 August		44	47	548	South Africa
20		Durban^[4]	South Africa	22–26 June		44	43	720	South Africa
21		Asaba		1–5 August	Stephen Keshi Stadium	44	52	800	Kenya
22	2022	Saint Pierre^[5]		8–12 June	Cote d’Or National Sports Complex	45	50	636	Kenya
23	2024	Douala^[6]		21–26 June	Japoma Stadium	45	54	800	South Africa
24	2026	Accra^[7]			Legon Sports Stadium