There is nothing to match the experience of an Olympic Games. Sport carries a huge sense of pride and it is never more obvious than at the Olympics. It is the world’s most famous sporting stage where you will see the world’s most talented athletes and where competition is at the highest level. So for any athlete, it will be one of his/her proudest moments.
At an Olympics, every element plays a significant role in your performance. We all have good days and bad days and no matter how much training and preparation we include, on the day, everything needs to work out perfectly in order to achieve success.
First of all, you need to be in very good shape, then you need to be lucky with uncontrollable factors such as the weather and finally, you have to believe – and there is something about competing for your country at the Olympics that makes believing in yourself easier to do.
Four years ago I set myself a goal, to compete at the Beijing Olympics, however, I took a decision earlier this year not to run the marathon and concentrate on the 10,000 metres. Although I love this event, running on the track is very different to the road – you have to get used to running on a curve for much of the time, the surface is much softer and you are wearing spikes. These changes meant that I had to adjust everything in my life, my training and competition schedule had to be adapted. It has been strange, but I am positive and excited about the coming few days. Last year, one of my biggest dreams came true, when I broke the world record for the marathon in Berlin. Since then, I have thought about nothing but my next goal – Beijing, and in a few days, I will be walking to the start line with only this in mind, I cannot wait.
My list of athlestes to Watch
Liu Xiang
China
110m Hurdles
Age: 25
As the reigning World and Olympic champion, and the most famous athlete in China, he will be involved in the race of the Games. Liu also won the world indoor title in 2008 and is an outstanding performer under pressure. His main rival, Dayron Robles, of Cuba, recently supplanted him as a world-record holder, clocking 12.87 seconds in June.
Andrew Baddeley
GBR
1500m
Age: 26
Baddeley is Britain’s best male middle distance prospect since Steve Cram and Peter Elliott, both Olympic silver-medal winners. This year, he has won the European Cup and the Oslo Dream Mile, exhibiting a powerful finishing kick that is the envy of the world. An honours student of Cambridge, Baddeley has put an engineering career on hold to pursue his dream of athletics success.
Abubaker Kaki
Sudan
800m
Age: 19
Only a teenager, but already World Indoor champion and World Junior record holder. Anyone who witnessed his performance at the Bislett Games knows the Sudanese teenager appears the man to beat in the 800 metres. In only his first 800 metres of the outdoor season he made a great impression, clocking 1 hour 42 minutes 69 seconds in the Norwegian capital. At the 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Valencia, he won Sudan’s first gold medal and has since captured the world junior title. This young man is an exceptional athlete.
Obinna Metu
Nigeria
100m and 200m
Age: 20
Not one that many may have heard of, but, having won his Olympic trials in both the 100m and 200m, he has been hailed as Nigeria’s fastest man and will soon be an athlete most will know, from a country with an impressive sprinting pedigree. Metu is part of a global team of sportsmen called G4S 4teen, which supports young promising athletes in their quest to achieve their sporting dreams. The athletes in the programme are supported by myself and G4S – I have been following their progress closely and it is fantastic to see Metu having already qualified for an Olympic Games.
Allyson Felix
USA
200m
Age: 22
As a triple World Champion in 2007 (200m, 4x100m relay and 4x400m relay), Allyson is among the top two or three female athletes in the world. Unrivalled at 200m having won last year’s world title by the biggest margin for a Championship race held at that distance, and threatening to be even better over 400m, she will aim to win Olympic gold over the shorter distance, having won a 200m silver in Athens in 2004, aged just 18.
Gelete Burka
Ethiopia
1500m
Age: 22
Before deciding to take up running, Burka played soccer at school, and changing sports was a good decision, as in her first season of formal athletics, she won a bronze medal at the World Junior Cross-Country Championships in 2003. Two years later, she won the gold and in 2006, the Senior Short Course title. On the track, she favours the 1500 metres and is reigning African Champion and World Indoor Bronze-medal winner. Coming from a country where athletics is usually based around long-distance running, Burka’s achievement as a 1500 metres runner from Ethiopia is all the more impressive.
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Haile Gebreselassie is the global ambassador of G4S 4teen, helping 14 aspiring athletes achieve their sporting dreams. More information www.g4ssport.com
NAIROBI (IRIN) — Access to food in Djibouti has been cut by more than 50 percent because of reduced availability and rising prices, according to a humanitarian official.
“The price of rice [the main staple] had gone up by 28 percent since January and by 88 percent from [the average price] in 2007,” Nancy Balfour, the disaster management coordinator for the Zonal Office of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), told IRIN.
Djibouti imports 80 percent of its food, most of it traditionally from Ethiopia, which is suffering food insecurity of its own and has banned the export of several cereal crops.
“Household budgets have also gone down,” Balfour said. Unemployment in the capital is estimated at 60 percent.
The urban and peri-urban populations that have not been covered in past humanitarian interventions are the most affected, she said. Other hard-hit areas include Obock in the northwest and Ali Sabieh in the southeast.
The peri-urban areas also had limited water supply. “The pastoralists are concerned with trying to keep livestock alive,” she said.
Low rainfall and subsequent drought over the past few years have caused massive livestock deaths in the mainly pastoralist country and also led to a decline in pastoralist trade and income.
The global acute malnutrition (GAM) rate among children between six months and five years averages 16.8 percent, reaching 25 percent in the northwest region, according to a Joint Appeal and Response Plan for Drought, Food and Nutrition Crisis released by Djibouti’s government and the UN in late-July.
The drought had made it difficult for pastoralists to cope, forcing many to migrate to towns. “People are dropping out of pastoralism,” Balfour said.
The migrants live in poor conditions in informal settlements in and around town where they lack adequate access to water and sanitation facilities, she said.
The IFRC is supplying 10,000 people with food and water. Balfour said the organisation was also helping set up temporary water supplies where people were displaced as well as improving water access in the rural areas as a preliminary measure.
A more detailed needs assessment is being carried out to identify gaps, she said.
According to the Joint Appeal, US$31.7 million is needed to help tackle the crisis, which is affecting about 120,000 people. These include 36,000 sub-urban people (mostly formerly semi-nomadic), 8,500 refugees and 20,000 asylum-seekers.
Strategic priorities of the appeal include increasing food distribution in rural areas as well as for urban and sub-urban populations by implementing a food/cash voucher programme.
The UN World Food Programme is increasing the number of rural people targeted for food aid from 47,000 to 80,000, with at least 50,000 urban dwellers included in future aid distributions, the spokesman for East and Central Africa, Marcus Prior, said on 31 July.
The government has also reduced taxes on agricultural inputs, basic food commodities and cooking fuel, in an effort to relieve the high food prices.
The UN World Health Organisation is also assisting in the provision of essential healthcare to the most vulnerable groups in the districts of Obock, Tadjourah and Dikhil, according to a report, Health Action in Crises Highlights No 220 – 4 to 10 August 2008.
Djibouti was ranked second after Haiti in May on the World Bank watch-list for food-insecure countries with a high probability of social unrest.
NAIROBI (Xinhua) — The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and regional mediation body, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), have entered into a cooperation agreement that will strengthen relations between the two organizations and enhance coordination of their activities.
A statement from the seven-member regional bloc issued in Nairobi said the agreement, which was signed in Nairobi on Thursday by Mahboub Maalim, IGAD executive secretary, and ICRC Head of Regional Delegation Christophe Lüedi commits the two organizations to regular consultation on matters of mutual interest.
“Major topics will include the protection of civilians affected by armed conflict and other forms of violence, including refugees and internally displaced persons; preventive action; post-conflict rebuilding and weapon-related issues of relevance to Africa, such as landmines and the proliferation of small arms,” it said.
The ICRC and IGAD will also promote international humanitarian law and encourage IGAD member states to undertake full implementation of the relevant treaties.
The IGAD, which groups Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia, is working with ICRC to limit the suffering that armed conflicts inflict on people, the IGAD’s work in the field of peace and security being of particular relevance.
But while the IGAD’s actions are political, the ICRC’s operations are exclusively humanitarian.
The ICRC has a presence in all IGAD member countries.
Africa accounts for almost half of the organization’s annual expenditure, with Somalia and Sudan among the largest, of the ICRC’s operations.
BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. shot putters and Ethiopian distance runners go for potential medals sweeps when the much heralded 10-day Olympic athletics program kicks off on Friday.
The world’s best sprinters will also be part of the opening action with two rounds of the men’s 100 meters.
Medals will be awarded in the men’s shot put and women’s 10,000 meters.
Both events could result in medals sweeps with the U.S. men strongest in the shot put and Ethiopia’s runners dominant in the women’s 10,000 meters.
It has been 28 years since a country swept the shot put medals, but U.S. trio Adam Nelson, Reese Hoffa and Christian Cantwell have the skills to join their 1960 counterparts.
“I really think it’s realistic. I give it a 50-50 chance,” Hoffa told reporters at the U.S. training camp in the northeast Chinese city of Dalian.
“I would love to be the class of Olympic athletes to sweep but everything has to go right,” said Hoffa.
“If we don’t go out there and hit the marks that we’re supposed to hit then we don’t dominate because there are a lot of quality European athletes.”
Nelson, twice an Olympic silver medalist, reigns as the year’s top thrower with a heave of 22.12 meters.
World champion Hoffa is close behind at 22.10 with Cantwell the world indoor champion.
All three have personal bests superior to their closest competitor, Belarus’s Andrey Mikhnevich.
The Belarusian has the year’s third best throw, 22.00 meters, with Cantwell fourth at 21.76.
The Americans, despite their overall domination of the event, have not claimed gold for the past two Olympics.
Finn Arsi Harju outdistanced Nelson for the 2000 title and Ukrainian Yuri Bilonoh’s second-best throw topped Nelson in 2004 after both had the same top mark.
In the women’s 10,000 meters, Ethiopian Tirunesh Dibaba is favored to add an Olympic gold medal to her two world championship titles.
Dibaba demonstrated her fitness by setting a world record of 14:11.15 in the 5,000 meters in Oslo in June.
In what could be a tactical race, she is likely to receive support from her older sister Ejegayehu, the 2004 silver medalist, and fellow Ethiopian Mestawat Tufa. Both could join Dibaba on the medals podium.
Other top candidates include Turkey’s Elvan Abeylegesse, the world silver medalist, and the American duo of Kara Goucher and Shalane Flanagan.
Goucher claimed bronze at the 2007 world championships and Flanagan lowered the American record to 30:34.49 this year.
The first four events of the heptathlon are also on the program along with qualifying in seven events — the men’s 1,500 meters, 400 hurdles and hammer throw, and the women’s 800 meters, 3,000 meters steeplechase, triple jump and discus.
The women’s steeplechase is being contested for the first time at an Olympics.
(SUNA) – Troops from Ethiopia taking part in UNAMID force operating in Darfur will start arriving in Al Fashir as of coming Saturday, the 16th of August, in implementation of the agreement between the Sudan, the UN and the African Union.
An informed source at UNAMID told the Sudan News Agency SUNA that the first batch will comprise between 150 to 200 troops including officers and privates, to be followed by two batches on the 17 and the 18th of the same month, putting the total number of Ethiopian participation in the hybrid operation to 350 elements.
MOGADISHU – Today Ethiopian Woyanne troops have disarmed the Mayor of the city of Afgoye, Mr. Mohamed Omar Mudey.
The Mayor who at the time he was disarmed was being escorted by his security forces in two vehicles was crossing the bridge in Afgoye. Ethiopian Woyanne troops at the bridge stopped his vehicles and took the guns his security guard were carrying.
It is not clear yet as to why Ethiopian Woyanne troops disarmed the Mayor who twice in the past survived bomb attacks thought to have been planted by groups opposed to the Woyanne-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the presence of the Ethiopian Woyanne troops in Somalia.
The disarmament of the Mayor has come at a time when unconfirmed reports are circulating about a large Ethiopian Woyanne and TFG troops who are on their way to the city.
Recently, security forces of the city clashed with TFG troops trained in Ethiopian Woyanne who were on their way to Mogadishu on foot. It is not clear if there is a relationship between the two incidents.
The Mayor’s office has not released any comments related to the incident.
