African hockey tournament postponed after Nairobi attack

THE Africa Cup of Nations hockey tournament which was due to begin yesterday in Nairobi, Kenya, has been postponed due to the recent terror attack there.

“From a timing perspective it was not the appropriate time,” South African Hockey Association CE Marissa Langeni said yesterday.

Islamist gunmen entered the Westgate Mall in Nairobi last Saturday and used automatic weapons and grenades to kill 67 people.

Kenya is in three days of national mourning following the end of the four-day siege at the mall.

The African Hockey Federation and the International Hockey Federation postponed the tournament until further notice.

Langeni added that prior to the mall attack, two nations due to take part in the Africa Cup of Nations — which serves as Africa’s qualifier tournament for the hockey world cup in the Netherlands next year — had withdrawn. Nigeria and Namibia did not give reasons for their decision.

“Normally with African hockey, a lot of the nations depend on governments to pay their bills. I think for them it was purely financial reasons, and that was last week Thursday when they withdrew.

“Essentially, it was already a watered-down tournament and then, of course, with the Westgate incident then taking place, Africa hockey and the FIH jointly decided that it was the best thing to postpone the tournament.” As defending champions in both the men’s and women’s tournament, SA were looking forward to retaining their crowns to qualify for next year’s world cup.

With only three nations competing in the men’s tournament — SA, Ghana, and Kenya, and four in the women’s event — SA, Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania, Langeni said there were major concerns in the build-up to the event. “We withheld a lot of the preparation (ahead of the) final departure dates,” she said, “because we were concerned by the number of withdrawals the tournament had experienced. We were waiting to get final confirmation of the fixtures.

“We were also negotiating a relook at the fixtures. We found that with the men’s tournament being a three-nation event, they were going to sit out for five days and not have any activity. We had already formally written to the AFHF (African Hockey Federation) to … revise the fixtures to allow for the men’s competition to start slightly later than the women’s tournament.”

Although no indication has been given by the hockey federations as to the revised date of the tournament, Langeni was hopeful a new one would be decided in due course.

“We’re all anxious to find out what the new date is and to obviously look at the preparations.”