12 - 18 April 2001
Issue No.529
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 12 - 18 April 2001 Issue No.529 |
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The bank is closed
Where to, Egyptian sportsmen and women? If the world is the yardstick of measurement, there is really nowhere to go but up.
It would be almost impossible to drop further down. Taking the Summer Olympics as an example, not a solitary medal of any colour has been won since the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. Nothing in Seoul, blanked in Barcelona, empty-handed in Atlanta and shut out in Sydney.
Fortunately, we do not have to play against the world every day. Fortunately, there are regional championships that are easier to handle.
But even these less challenging events are becoming a handful.
Case in point: the 1999 All-Africa Games. Until then we ruled the continent, coming first in this tournament and hardly breaking a sweat while doing so. But South Africa, ostracised for years by the international community for its apartheid policies, came out of the woodwork that year to unseat Egypt and be crowned the new African king. There is scant doubt that Egypt will be a bridesmaid in the tournament from now on.
So it should come as no surprise that this year's Mediterranean Games are being looked at from here with few expectations. The Games, scheduled for Tunisia in September, will include European sports heavyweights like France, Italy and Spain. We will be going without swimmer Rania Elwani, who struck gold in the pool in previous Mediterranean Games, but who retired last year. And we will be going without training, at least not the kind you need at such a high-level meet.
With just five months to go before the Games begin, the money needed for preparing the teams has yet to arrive from the Ministry of Youth. The delay is odd since the National Olympic Committee (NOC) has already submitted a list of names to the ministry of the athletes it thinks has a chance of doing something -- anything -- in Tunisia.
The selection process was conducted like this: the NOC informed all federations that they will not be allowed to go to Tunisia unless male athletes can achieve at least a fourth place finish and women vow a less demanding fifth to eighth place finish. "Who can do this?" asked the NOC. Like schoolchildren eager to please their teacher, 12 federations raised their hands and loudly proclaimed in unison, "No problem."
To be sure, this question-and-answer session is conducted before every major tournament. Every time, the teams give a resounding 'yes' to the NOC and every time they flunk the test miserably.
Perhaps this year will be different, but the guess is that it won't. The NOC cannot reward its enthusiastic charges because the ministry has yet to open its wallet, for reasons unknown other than the usual bureaucratic explanations. How can the ministry ask -- even demand -- results if training periods are to be cut to the bone?
If anything is to be achieved in the Games in Tunisia, eagerness will not be enough. Without adequate preparation -- physically, mentally and emotionally -- we will not come anywhere near a medal. You can bank on it.
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