Sports performance, Africa has only one choice... 2209
The extraordinary experience of Nezha Bidouane, Hicham El Guerrouj, Khalid Skah, Brahim Boutayeb, Nawal El Moutawakel, Salah Hissou, Hasna Benhassi, Zahra Ouaziz, Said Aouita, Jawad Gharib, Ali Ezzine and so many others has made Morocco a super power of world athletics. At that time, Morocco was among the notable countries in world athletics with dazzling results and a continuity of almost a quarter of a century.
Morocco was even fifth in the world in 1999, during the world championships in Seville.
Very high-level performances, charismatic athletes, Moroccan coaches trained properly in Morocco, an inspired federal policy, unconditional support from the State, generous royal concern have made this Morocco great for athletics.
At the world level, for the training of high-level athletes, there are two successful and time-honoured experiences, two ways of training and producing performance and a third which is gaining a good place, which is even becoming the more productive, the one invented and implemented in Morocco.
This Moroccan method has been emulated. It was adopted by the IAAF at the time, by the African Confederation and also by more than one country.
Roughly speaking, you have the American system with large, very rich universities having all the means to train very high-level athletes. American universities are developing scientific research in sports performance, investing in large laboratories in exercise physiology, psychology and other cognitive sciences, sports sociology and all other areas of physical activity for well-being and the production of sports performance. They invest in sporting performance to improve and consolidate their respective image, in a major inter-university competition. They are therefore the most productive in the world, benefiting from developed knowledge, an unrivaled level of supervision and an inspiring historical record. They are a super power and provide the USA with all-round sporting power. So the USA has always been one step ahead of the rest of the world.
Alongside the American system there is the European system with large clubs supported by very rich local authorities and very generous sponsors. This system therefore produces the second largest sporting power in the world and this is seen at the various world championships and the Olympic Games every four years.
In Africa we have neither of these systems, nor could we have one in the near future.
So, in Morocco, we invented our own path which is to design and set up a national institution which brings together very talented young people selected from a good prospecting and talent detection system. The selected ones are then placed in an environment of high competence, optimized performance, under the leadership of 100% Moroccan executives. Having an exclusively national framework is of great importance on a cultural, sociological and emotional level. We must never forget that sporting performance is a cultural expression. Everyone's motivation is the same: to represent the country with dignity. This is what allowed us for more than 20 years to be among the ten greatest nations in the world, to have dozens of titles and world records.
I think this is the path for African countries. In Kenya too, almost all athletes come from a similar system initiated by certain equipment manufacturers and by the IAAF in the past. Ethiopia has adopted the same path. This is also the path that the CAA is currently developing by multiplying the African Athletics Development Centers -AADC-. These are executive training and training units for young athletes. Unfortunately the system is threatened by lack of resources, World Athletics having chosen not to follow the CAA in this voice.
Such a system can only work on the basis of an intelligently thought out and effectively carried out detection system.
Why don't we see new generations of great Moroccan athletes, would be the question that more than one would ask me?
Sports performance, if it depends on the will of leaders and a favorable environment, it depends above all and above all on the men who work in the system, on their commitment and their genius.
Structures and funding are not sufficient to generate high performance. We are here in a cultural domain of permanent creativity, based on a vision which combines will with cultural aspects but without neglecting the consideration of scientific advances at the highest level.
The foresight of decision-makers, the level of confidence in management, the continuity of the system are all factors which will impact the process of producing sporting performance. As soon as one of these factors is disturbed, the machine jams.
We must therefore conclude that to produce sporting performance, the continent has only one choice: that of training centers. This is what football does brilliantly in certain African countries including Morocco.
Aziz Daouda
