How can Africa improve its performance for LA 2028?

The curtain has come down on Paris 2024, an Olympics in which Africa registered a slight improvement in its performance from Tokyo 2020.

The continent won a total of 39 medals—13 gold, 12 silver and 14 bronze— spread across 12 nations, with Kenya the most successful with 11 podium finishes.

That is an increase of two medals on the tally in Japan three years ago but below the 45 that African competitors secured at Rio 2016.

So where can improvements be made in the next Olympiad before Los Angeles 2028?

The funding gap

One major area where Africa faces a disadvantage is funding facilities and support for athletes. Compared to the most developed nations, the numbers are stark.

For example, the team representing Great Britain and Northern Ireland was awarded just over £245m ($313m) for the Paris Olympic cycle— money many African countries could only dream of spending.

The United States, meanwhile, boasts world-class facilities, a college system that provides a pipeline of top-level talent in individual and team sports, and huge sponsorship deals.

“Governments should release funds,” Nigerian badminton player Anuoluwapo Juwon Opeyori told BBC Sport Africa.

“They should engage or advise the private sector to support athletes. If the government does not take us seriously, the private sector will not take us seriously.”

Egypt won just two medals at Paris 2024, picking up gold in the men’s modern pentathlon and silver in women’s weight-lifting, but could be a sleeping giant.

The North African country has spent billions of dollars building sports complexes, partly with a view to bidding to host the Olympics in 2036 or 2040.

“Egypt is ready now,” Sharif El Erian, the secretary general of the country’s National Olympic Committee told the BBC earlier this year. “The main support infrastructure has been developed.”

Egypt will host the next edition of the African Games in 2027— but can it use its new facilities to develop a generation of medal contenders?

Elsewhere, a senior official from the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (Anoca) says the organisation will commit $2m to its athlete support programme before LA 2028 and a further $500,000 per year to fund centres of excellence.

Targeted action

Focusing on a particular discipline can bring rewards. Botswana won its second successive medal in the men’s 4x400m relay in Paris— with South Africa and Zambia also in that final— and 200m champion Letsile Tebogo secured the country’s first-ever gold.

“For us, it is an amazing achievement. It will inspire athletes across the board,” Botswana athletics coach Justice Dipeba said.

“It is something we have been working on. It takes time but with the little we have got, we can match the world.”

Dipeba traces their 4x400m relay development back to Rio 2016, where Botswana finished fifth in the final, followed by a bronze in Tokyo and victories at the Commonwealth Games in 2022 and at the World Relays in May.

With certain team sports both difficult to master and notoriously unpredictable, specialisation is also an option to boost performance.

South Korea swept up every gold medal on offer in archery in the French capital, with no African making it past the first round.