(Africa's Olympics Update after Week 1)
African Countries at the Olympics -- Continued from Page One
Rwanda has two swimmers and two track athletes competing in Beijing.Senegal has 16 competitors going to the Olympics in a wide variety of sporting events. These include canoeing, judo, taekwondo, and fencing. Aminata Diouf is their major track and field star and this will be her third Olympic games.
Somalia is sending 2 athletes to the Olympics and still hope for gold. The athletes train in a dilapidated stadium in northern Mogadishu.
South Africa is a sports mad country and this is reflected in their squad, which is Africa's largest and numbers 225 members. South Africans qualified in field hockey, shooting, swimming, track and field, bmx, rowing, canoeing, archery, cycling and fencing.
One of the biggest local stories is long-distance swimmer Natalie du Toit. She competed in Athens and won 5 medals in the Paralympics. This time round Natalie qualified for the Olympics and is the first female amputee ever to do so (the last amputee was Olivér Halassy in 1936.) Oscar Pistorius who has both legs amputated, is a runner (he uses artificial legs) and was also hoping to compete in the Olympics, but just failed to make the qualifying time.
South Africa has 24 swimmers competing at the Olympic games and one diver. Ronald Schoeman is a strong medal contender as are Suzaan van Biljon (breastroke) and Gerhard Zanberg (backstroke).
Sudan will send at least 7 athletes to the Games, including athletes from the war torn region of Darfur. There have been calls to boycott Sudan competing in the Olympics because of the political situation in Darfur, but as one the athletes themselves state to stuff.co.nz "I have heard some stories. But they don't really concern me," said Ali, taking a break from training in his country's half-built athletics stadium, made of crumbling concrete blocks still spiked with metal construction rods. "We are all Sudanese and I am running for Sudan".
The Sudanese athletes are woefully short of decent training grounds and are largely sponsored by British charities, in stark contrast to their neighbors, Ethiopia and Kenya who have some very robust athletic programs in place with lots of sponsorship opportunities for individual athletes.
Tanzania has 10 Olympic hopefuls competing in Beijing, including 8 track and field competitors and 2 swimmers.
Togo is just sending two athletes. Togo is an example of an African country which just doesn't have the finances to support more athletes at the Olympics, even if more would qualify.
Tunisia has a large Olympic squad which includes athletics, boxing, canoeing, fencing, swimming, wrestling, tennis and more. In all they'll have 32 competitors in 10 sports.
Uganda has a healthy delegation of 11 competitors in 4 sports including several athletes, swimmers and Africa's number 1 badminton player, Edwin Ekiring.
Zambia is sending a boxer and six athletes, who are looking to attain personal bests and not necessarily medals at this point. They're also sending a badminton player.
Zimbabwe, despite its current political turmoil, is sending 13 athletes to the Olympics. Perhaps they'll carry some 100 billion Zimbabwe Dollar notes as souvenirs for their fellow athletes.
Kirsty Coventry is Zimbabwe's biggest medal hopeful, she won 3 medals in Athens and is the current world record holder in the 200m backstroke. After this success ABC reports "Several newborn babies were named Kirsty, some with the middle name Coventry, others were even called "Goldmedal" or "Threemedals" to celebrate her Athens haul."
Sources:
Xinhaunet.com's Beijing Olympics Coverage
Official Beijing Olympics Web Site
Sports Illustrated -- Olympic Athletes by Country
AllAfrica.com -- Olympic Coverage
