Marie Jose Ta Lou, a renowned Ivorian athlete, shares her disillusionment and frustration with the subpar organization and unequal treatment at the African Athletics Championship in Douala, Cameroon. Despite her initial high expectations, she expresses her disappointment and advocates for change, highlighting the need for improvement in the tournament’s logistics and fair treatment for all athletes.
“I’m hurt and disappointed. Coming here, I had high expectations. We need to change things and do better. We now have some high-level athletes, but my team has to take a taxi (Yango) to the stadium because the transportation is poor. On top of that, while we were in the taxi, we saw another African team with a police escort. Why can’t they do that for everyone?”
Letsile Tebogo was disqualified from the men’s 100m at the African Championships in Douala after false-starting. Meanwhile, top athletes like Marie Josée Ta Lou-Smith, Favour Ofili, Rosemary Chukwuma, and Shaun Maswanganyi did not start their respective races.
She then won silver medals in the 100m and 200m at the 2017 World Athletics Championship, the latter in the national record time of 22.08 seconds. Her 100 metres best is 10.72 seconds (2022), thus making her the African record holder.
