Firm deal
Just in time for the holidays, weightlifting received a surprise bonus
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SUPERWOMAN: Nahla Ramadan, in action in the World Championship in Vancouver this year, won two silver medals and also set a new world record, lifting 117.5kgs in the snatch
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Weightlifting officials have signed a $50,000 sponsorship deal with a fast-food chain, the first time the sport gets such a powerful monetary lift, writes Mohamed El-Sayed
The sponsor will finance whatever training is conducted abroad in preparation for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.
At a recent press conference in the Olympic Centre in Maadi, the Egyptian Weightlifting Federation said the sponsor will also provide the national team with 500 T-shirts bearing its trademark. Moreover, it will bear the cost of publishing a book on the history of Egyptian weightlifting.
According to the contract, after any success story by a player, like winning a medal, a press conference will be held to point out the role of the sponsor.
Yassin Mansour, the sponsor's chairman, said businessmen should shoulder their social responsibility by financing national teams since the state cannot financially support all of them. "We take pride in sponsoring this promising team and we hope they will win Olympic medals so that they can restore the glory of the 'kings of iron' of the 1940s," Mansour said.
Confirming the growing trend of private companies sponsoring national teams, Ali El-Saadani, of the Ministry of Youth, said big corporations were searching for publicity by sponsoring successful national teams. "We have sponsorship contracts in football, handball and table tennis but this is the first time in weightlifting. We hope such agreements extend to other sports."
At the press conference, Mahmoud Shukri, head of the federation, listed Egypt's achievements in the last two years which prompted the contract. This year, the national team finished fourth in the World Junior Championship in May in Mexico even though only six players participated. Nahla Ramadan won the best player cup for women, snatching two gold medals and one silver in addition to establishing two world records in the snatch and total. The two world records -- lifting 116.5kgs in the snatch and 262kgs in the total -- are the best achievements in the history of Egyptian weightlifting. Teammate Inja Sayed won two silver medals and one bronze while Hibatallah Abdel-Rehim took one silver and one bronze.
In the men's, Mohamed Ihsan won three gold medals and the best player cup as he took first place in the junior championship for the second consecutive year.
In the Grand Prix championship in Hungary in May, Ramadan came first and set another two world records in the jerk and clean and the total, lifting 145kgs and 260kgs.
In the World Championship in Vancouver, Canada, Ramadan won two silver medals in the women's event and also set a new world record, lifting 117.5kgs in the snatch.
Five Egyptians also qualified for the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004.
In touching upon 2002, Shukri began with the unprecedented number of medals won at the World Junior Championship in the Czech Republic -- four gold medals, one silver and four bronze. Ihsan alone won three gold medals and Hassan Sobhi one. The women took five medals via the two sisters, Nahla and Nagham Ramadan. Nahla won one silver and one bronze, while Nagham took three bronze.
In November of the same year, and for the first time since 1951, Egypt won three bronze medals in the world championship held in Warsaw. Nahla Ramadan won two bronze medals in the snatch and the total, while Mohamed Tantawi won a third bronze in the jerk and clean competition.
Up until September 2004, the national team will be training in the Olympic Centre in Maadi, Arish, Ismailia, Bulgaria, Slovakia and China.
Mapping out the long-term strategy of the federation, Shukri said that it aims at expanding its base by drawing new players. "In 2000, we had only 772 players. This year the number rose to more than 4,000 and we plan to increase this to 5,000 by the end of next year."
In an attempt to form a second national team Shukri said, "After the world championships in Canada, we gathered 250 weightlifters from all governorates to test them and we selected the best 35. In January we will test them again and choose the best among them to form the nucleus of a new national team."
Asked why Egyptians excel in junior competitions but fail to do the same at senior level, Fathi Zureiq, the federation's secretary, offered his explanation. "Ninety per cent of our weightlifters are under 20. In 2002, we won three bronze medals in the senior world championship via under-20 weightlifters. This year we won three silver medals via the same young players, proving that we have junior players who can do very well at the senior level."
