Wrestlers from the ten states members of the Economic Community of West African States (CEO) are expected from 3 to 7 November 2021 in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, to participate in the competitions in the 9th edition of the wrestling tournament African from the ECO known as the name of TOLAC.
This tournament organized by the ECCO Center for Youth and Sports Development (CDJS) was adopted in November 1986 by the Council of Ministers of ECCO. The first edition of the tournament was held in Niamey, Niger, in 2001 with the participation of three countries (Niger, Nigeria and Burkina Faso).
As usual, the TOLAC will begin with an official opening ceremony in the presence of S. E Matar BA, Minister of Sports of Senegal, and Dr Siga Fatima JAGNE, Commissioner for Social Affairs and Genre of the ECB Commission, before the start of the fights at the Dakar National Wrestling Arena. Earlier, technical officials and referees will participate in a two-day recycling session and special meetings will be held for technical officials and federations to familiarize them with the rules es and the regulations, as well as the new trends related to the rotation modalities of the tournament.
For this 9th edition, ten (10) countries out of the fifteen member states (15) of the ECOWAS are held in Dakar. Togo, Liberia and Cape Vert will be the major absentees from this year’s tournament, in addition to Mali and Guinea, which are excluded from the competition of sanctions against the West African regional organization. Other partners from international wrestling structures based in Pakistan, Turkey and Rwanda will also participate in the demonstration as observers.
The 2021 edition of TOLAC, which could not be held in Dakar in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has the ambition to (i) Promote regional integration and development through sport; (ii) Promote African values and the Development of authentic regional sports by the development and promotion of traditional sports and culture; (iii) to Strengthen the African Wrestling Tournament of the ECOWAS in order to lift African wrestling on the global sports scene and make its practice widely international.
In addition to these first three goals, the ones to enact Covid-19 sporting protocols and preventive measures in wrestling tournaments in West Africa, to participate in youth empowerment through their participation active in sports, and finally strengthen the technical capacity of officials and African wrestling referees.
As a reminder, the TOLAC started out with only three countries. It has grown by a giant step and regularly records the participation of 14 of the 15 CEC countries, thus claiming that wrestling is a traditional intrinsic sport in the region. This expansion is a supported work by the West African regional organization coupled with innovations introduced along the way to developing this sport. The coding and normalization of the technical rules and regulations of TOLAC and the partnership with the sports federations of the region have also played a key role in the stimulation that arises, more and more, this sport in the community.
Already registered in the calendar of the Francophonie Games since the 2005 edition held in Niamey, the traditional struggle is given special attention at the level of the CDJS in order to promote the practice of this sport in the CEDEO space and to give him, in the end, a universal recognition by his registration for the Olympics (JO).
For the Uagadougou-based Youth and Sports Development Center, Burkina, to develop two essential factors that are the geographical expansion of the practice of wrestling and the elevation of the technical level. For this reason, the centre has designed an ambitious program that follows the four pillars of development of every sport, namely the organization of competitions, training of referees, coaches and didactic support, strengthening Building the capacities of the national federations and finally the establishment of the sports infrastructure.
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