Senegal's first President, Léopold Senghor, advocated close relations with France and negotiation and compromise as the best means of resolving international differences after Senegal's independence from its status as a French colony. To a large extent, the two succeeding presidents, Abdou Diouf and Abdoulaye Wade, have carried on Senghor's policies and philosophies. Senegal has long supported functional integration among French-speaking West African states through the West African Economic and Monetary Union.
Abdou Diouf is a Senegalese politician who was the second President of Senegal, in office from January 1981 to April 2000.
The individual member states of the African Union (AU) coordinate foreign policy through this agency, in addition to conducting their own international relations on a state-by-state basis. The AU represents the interests of African peoples at large in intergovernmental organizations (IGO's); for instance, it is a permanent observer at the United Nations' General Assembly.
A folk wrestling style is any traditional style of wrestling, which may or may not be codified as a modern sport. Most cultures have developed regional forms of grappling.
Stade Général Seyni Kountché (SGSK) is a multi-purpose stadium in Niamey, Niger. Used for football matches, it is home to the Niger national football team, as well as Niger Premier League clubs Sahel SC, Olympic FC de Niamey, Zumunta AC and JS du Ténéré, as well as club competitions such as the Niger Cup. The venue is also sometimes used for rugby union. It is the largest stadium in Niamey, followed by the 10,000-capacity Stade municipal.
The Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa is an international organization that unites the 54 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) of Africa. It is currently headquartered in Abuja, Nigeria. It serves as the successor to Standing Committee of African Sports or Comité permanent du sport africain founded in 1965 in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo.
Dambe is a martial art of the Hausa people from Nigeria. Competitors in a typical match aim to subdue each other into total submission mostly within three rounds. It often results in serious bodily injury. Boxers are called by the Hausa word "daæmaænga".
The Hausa are a native ethnic group in West Africa. They speak the Hausa language, which is the second most spoken language after Arabic in the Afro-Asiatic language family. The Hausa are a culturally homogeneous people based primarily in the Sahelian and the sparse savanna areas of southern Niger and northern Nigeria respectively, numbering around 86 million people, with significant populations in Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Chad, Central African Republic, Togo, Ghana, as well as smaller populations in Sudan, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Senegal, Gambia. Predominantly Hausa-speaking communities are scattered throughout West Africa and on the traditional Hajj route north and east traversing the Sahara, with an especially large population in and around the town of Agadez. Other Hausa have also moved to large coastal cities in the region such as Lagos, Port Harcourt, Accra, Abidjan, Banjul and Cotonou as well as to parts of North Africa such as Libya over the course of the last 500 years. The Hausa traditionally live in small villages as well as in precolonial towns and cities where they grow crops, raise livestock including cattle as well as engage in trade, both local and long distance across Africa. They speak the Hausa language, an Afro-Asiatic language of the Chadic group. The Hausa aristocracy had historically developed an equestrian based culture. Still a status symbol of the traditional nobility in Hausa society, the horse still features in the Eid day celebrations, known as Ranar Sallah. Daura is the cultural center of the Hausa people. The town predates all the other major Hausa towns in tradition and culture.
Senegalese wrestling is a type of folk wrestling traditionally performed by the Serer people and now a national sport in Senegal and parts of The Gambia, and is part of a larger West African form of traditional wrestling. The Senegalese form traditionally allows blows with the hands (frappe), the only one of the West African traditions to do so. As a larger confederation and championship around Lutte Traditionnelle has developed since the 1990s, Senegalese fighters now practice both forms, called officially Lutte Traditionnelle sans frappe and Lutte Traditionnelle avec frappe for the striking version.
Yékini is the nickname of Yakhya Diop, a popular champion of Senegalese wrestling, the most prominent variant of the Lutte Traditionnelle, a West African folk tradition which has become a major professional sport in the last two decades. From the Serer ethnic group, Yékini is the most successful wrestler since the professionalisation of the sport, and his appearances are major news in his home country. His 2006 fight against and defeat of Mohamed Ndao, alias Tyson, was billed in Senegal as "the fight of the century", cementing the two as the best known exponents of the sport. He was defeated by Balla Gaye 2, The Lion of Guédiawaye, at Stade Demba Diop on Sunday 22 April 2012, ending a reign that spanned almost two decades.
At the 2009 Jeux de la Francophonie, the athletics events were held at the Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium from 1 to 6 October. A total of 46 track and field events were contested.
At the 2005 Jeux de la Francophonie, the athletics events were held at the Stade Général Seyni Kountché in Niamey, Niger, from 11–16 December 2005. A total of 43 events were contested, of which 23 by male and 20 by female athletes. France sent the largest squad and topped the medal table with 19 gold medals and 39 medals in total. Morocco was the next most successful nation, having won 11 golds and 31 medals altogether. This was large as a result of their middle- and long-distance running dominance which saw them take all three medals in four events, as well as three separate Moroccan 1–2 finishes. Canada and the Ivory Coast were third and fourth in the medal tally. Twenty of the 37 nations competing won a medal, although hosts Niger went empty-handed in the athletics competition.
The 2013 Jeux de la Francophonie, also known as VIIèmes Jeux de la Francophonie, were held in Nice, France, from September 6–15. This was the second edition of the games to be hosted in France and the first time that a country hosted the games twice.
The Senegal national U-20 football team, nicknamed Les Lions de la Teranga is the feeder team for the Senegal national football team and is controlled by the Senegalese Football Federation. They are the current champions of the U-20 Africa Cup of Nations and their senior team are the current champions of the AFCON and the CHAN. The first time Senegal qualified for a World Cup was in 2015, where they managed to qualify for the semi-finals up until they lost against Brazil 5-0, their biggest defeat. They then went on to loss the third place match against fellow WAFU member Mali. Senegal ended up finishing in fourth place, their best performance in the tournament.
The boubou or grand boubou is a flowing wide-sleeved robe worn across West Africa, and to a lesser extent in North Africa, related to the dashiki suit.
The 2017 Jeux de la Francophonie, also known as VIIIèmes Jeux de la Francophonie, informally known as Abidjan 2017, took place in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, from July 21–30. This was the first edition of the games to be hosted in Ivory Coast.
The 3rd African Youth Games took place in Algiers, Algeria from 18 to 28 July 2018. The Games featured approximately 3,300 athletes from 55 African countries who competed in 30 sports. Algiers was awarded the games by Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa in 2014.
The West African Games was an international multi-sport event between the nations of West Africa, which was held in Lagos, Nigeria in 1977. Opened on 27 August by Nigeria's head of state, Olusegun Obasanjo, ten countries took part in the eight-day competition. A total of eleven sports were contested.
Nigeria has several traditional games, though they have faded away due to lack of support and the dominance of Western sports. Traditional games historically played a significant role in teaching Nigerian children about the structure of their societies.
