Al-Ahram Weekly | Sports

		24 - 30 October 2002 Issue No. 609 Sports	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Recommend this page

Table manners

BILLIARDS is not a game the public commonly associates with Cairo. Certainly not in the professional arena, that is. But outer faces can be quite deceiving; Egypt, it turns out, is a master at the table.
After an all-Egyptian final, Egypt won the African Billiards Championship (snooker), when Egypt's Hisham Abbas beat teammate Wael Talaat 5-1 in the final to win the title. The five- day event -- which ended last Friday in Cairo's 6th October City -- saw 29 players representing five nations -- Morocco, South Africa, Mauritius, Libya and Egypt.
Egypt stood far apart from the crowd, clinching not just first and second, but the third spot too. Egypt's Mohamed Elhami defeated South Africa's number one Francois Lein in the play off for the third and fourth places.
President of the African Billiards Federation, Egyptian Mohamed Ibrahim, said that he was glad with the results scored by the Egyptian team and wishes they could at least reach the final stages in the upcoming World Championship that started in Egypt last Saturday.
"Egypt and South Africa are the top two powerhouses of snooker in the continent. We expected that both countries would compete for the title as it happened before in the previous four editions of the African Championships," Ibrahim said. "They have been exchanging the title amongst themselves since the creation of the African events."
Ibrahim -- who won the post as president of the African Federation uncontested two days before the elections took place in Cairo last week -- revealed that although 19 countries are registered as members in the African Billiards Federation, only eight countries are always keen to participate in the federation's activities.
"The high cost of the game and of traveling within the continent to participate in the federation's different activities made so many countries refrain from taking part since their budget isn't enough," Ibrahim explained.
Others voice similar viewpoints.
"Our budget is so little and we can't afford to play in either international events which makes our level stable," said Saleem Moosa, Mauritius' number one player, and vice-president of the country's federation. "There's no improvement in our levels and the possibility of reaching an international level is far away from our ambitious. The government wouldn't increase our budget as we're not an Olympic game and I think it's the same problem facing most of the African countries. "
The situation may look dire, but nevertheless, the African Federation, Ibrahim said, is doing its best to attract poor countries to share in the federation's activities by different means.
"We are trying to organise packages with good prices and discounts to enable them to come. We don't want to lose the popularity of the game in Africa," Ibrahim said.
The real test of African Billiards comes next month, when four African nations will take part in the World Championship (Egypt, Morocco, South Africa and Mauritius). Egypt will be represented by eight players, testing their skills at the hands of 88 players representing 44 countries. The 12-day event -- which is to take place at the 6th of October City's Movenpick hotel -- will bring to the forefront the real standing of African billiards, and will be Egypt's first true and tough test.

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