Apr
19
For Sudan athletes, Olympics signifies hope
April 19, 2008 | | Leave a Comment
By Cindy Ru
Many Darfur activists take the Beijing Olympics as a great chance to exert pressure on the Chinese government, but for the twelve Sudan athletes that are busy training for the Games in a shabby stadium in Khartoum, the talk of boycotting the Olympics is rather absurd. For them, it is an event to show the world that good things can happen in Sudan too.
This is a photo from African based freelancer Rob Crilly’s blog, which shows Sudan’s Olympic medal hopeful for the 800m – Abubaker Kaki Khamis – using “bits of rubble for weights”. An article from the Times described the basic training condition of these Sudan athletes and said training for the runners has to stop after the sun goes down because they don’t have floodlights. And as athletes from neighboring countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia get big sponsorship, a lot of the training gear for the Sudan athletes come from a British Charity group, according to Reuters.
Almost half of the Olympic athletes come from the Darfur region. Abubaker Kaki comes from the Misseriya tribe, where many Arab militia gathered. His roommate Ismail Ahmed Ismail is a 23-year-old coming from the Fur tribe in west Darfur which supported the rebel movement. But for them, tribes and ethnicity really doesn’t mean anything. They are running for their country, their families, and also for themselves.
“I think it is ridiculous what these people are doing (Olympic protests),” said Jamo Aden, coach of the Sudan Olympic running team, “They say they are doing it for the people of Darfur. They think it is only about war and genocide. But they don’t realize that if they damage these Games, they are going to be hurting Darfuris, running to support themselves and their families.”
