Taking for reference the statistics established notably by Mr Yves Pinaud, one is led to notice the constant rejuvenation of what could be called the expanding elite (100 MP per event). By way of an example, in 2006, 90% of the performers were born after the year 1980, and half of them were born between 1984 and 1990.  In most countries,

• The number of adult high-value athletes is clearly decreasing, which triggers off two anachronistic situations:
• The bulk of junior athletes vanish from practice sight, a fact which testifies to a situation of incompleteness as well as the wasting away of important potential.
• Countries count less and less adult high-value athletes and are; therefore, incapable of asserting themselves at the level of high-standard competitions.

What is to be done to remedy to such a situation ?

Such is exactly the mission that this symposium seeks to explore in its 2007 edition, mobilising as it does more lecturers who are concerned with Africa and who have the requisite competencies in relation to athletics in general.

AXIS N°1: ATHLETICS AND HUMAN DEVELOPME

1. Athletics is a factor of human development, and hence requires that it be studied at the level of the factors likely to motivate and to carry forward the sports’ careers of talented young African athletes.
2. The models of successful lived-experiences regarding the development of athletics in Africa .
3. The migration of African athletes and staff.
4. Impact of television on the human development by sport in the rural worl

AXIS N°2 : SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

1. The decisive factors behind excellence in athletics, and African specificities.
   
2. High level training in athletics.
   
3. The school, a lever for the development in athletics.