Small Countries’ Athletes Face Olympic Struggles

ATHENS – The United States sent 536 athletes to these Olympic Games. Equatorial Guinea sent two. So I was surprised to run into the father of Rob Caraciolo, half of the Equatorial Guinean team, in the middle of Athens.There he was, in front of the Starbucks off of Panepistimou Street, hawking track and field tickets to his son’s event. Mr. Caraciolo had purchased tickets well in advance of the Games, but upon arriving, found that Rob had a pair waiting for him. Now he was offering these, at their list price of 70 Euros, to two elderly Greeks.“Rob’s racing in the 1,500 meters,” Mr. Caraciolo said. “He has a blond Afro – you can’t miss him.” The ticket purchasers were delighted. “Rob’s not going to win or anything,” Mr. Caraciolo added, managing expectations. “He’s just going to do his best.”For athletes representing countries that are small in size, population, or gross national product, their best is enough at the Olympics. No one really expects an Equatorial Guinean to beat competitors from powerhouses such as the U.S., Australia, and China. After all, it hardly seems like a fair fight.Some inequalities are obvious from the start. Larger countries have a bigger pool of well-trained athletes to choose from than the National Olympic Committee of, say, Djibouti does. (Djibouti’s only Olympian, tennis player Abdo Abdallah, carried her nation’s flag as a solo marcher at the Opening Cereomny.) Furthermore, once athletes from the U.S. and other wealthy nations qualify to compete in the Games, they often attract sponsors who foot most of their training bills; many smaller nations have no such support.Training conditions for Olympians vary as well. While the U.S. Olympic team has state-of-the-art training centers in California, Colorado, and New York, the Iraqi soccer team didn’t have a stadium in which to practice after several were destroyed or transformed into hospitals during the Gulf Wars. Of course, the Iraqi team, with or without stadiums, probably benefited from a marked decrease in stress after the death of Uday Hussein, who was in the habit of torturing players who didn’t perform well.Once the competitions begin, the Olympic experience differs markedly depending on whether an athlete hails from the U.S. or from Uzbekistan. During these Games, members of the American team have been welcomed at the American College of Greece, a home away from home where they enjoy unlimited free Coca Cola, lunchtime barbecues, Internet hookups, and access to sports psychologists.Lured by the serenity of the College’s verdant grounds, some U.S. athletes, including Michael Phelps and Marion Jones, chose to bunk there instead of sharing a room with a team member at the Olympic Village. Meanwhile, athletes from most of the 201 other competing countries jockey for training space in the shared Olympic Village facilities.But the advantages that a superpower’s athletes enjoy come with a price. Most participating nations at these games have been cheering loudly for themselves. The most vocal of all, the Greeks, chant “Ole, Hellas Ole, Ole” when Greek athletes play, and cheer for the underdog when there are no Greeks involved. Americans, on the other hand, have been asked by the U.S. Olympic committee to refrain from flag-waving, and the chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A!” sound decibels softer than at Olympics past.As of today, the U.S. has garnered 27 gold medals, 31 silver, and 24 bronze. But there have been many small victories celebrated as well. Windsurfer Gal Fridman won Israel its first gold medal in 52 years of Olympic participation, a milestone his coach Gilad Lustig called “a moment we have long been waiting for.”Kirsty Coventry returned to Zimbabwe as a triple Olympic medalist, having earned gold, silver, and bronze medals,the country’s first ever in swimming. And Francoise Mbango Etone danced a syrtaki along with the Greek silver medalist Hrysopiyi Devetzi after earning Cameroon its first track and field gold.A few feet away from the elder Mr. Caraciolo’s post near Starbucks,another man was selling discounted tickets that had been given to the National Olympic Committee of Kyrgyzstan. I bought two for beach volleyball, then called the Athens Olympic Committee to make sure I hadn’t committed a crime.“Before tickets go on sale, the International Olympic Committee reserves a quota to give to stakeholders in the games – broadcasters, official federations, and national Olympic committees,” a spokesperson for the Athens Olympic Committee, Mihalis Zacharatos, explained.While the committees can dispense of the tickets as they please,Zacharatos said that selling them was “discouraged”, although not illegal if they were sold for list price or less. The only tickets I saw being resold were printed with the names of the smaller National Olympic Committees, the ones more in need of money than glory.Kyrgyzstan did win a bronze in judo at Sydney. But so far, they’ve had no luck in Athens. Still, if the scalpers hanging around Starbucks are any indication,the Kyrgyzstanis are making the most of these games financially. According to the CIA handbook, the average annual income in Kyrgyzstan is $1,600. At that rate, my 40-euro purchase of two beach volleyball tickets should go far.As for Equatorial Guinea, its Athens Olympic tally is 0 gold, 0 silver, and 0 bronze, despite the efforts of Rob Caraciolo, who finished last in the men’s 1,500-meter with a time of 4:03:27. It was the best he could do, and a national record for Equatorial Guinea.

Small Countries’ Athletes Face Olympic Struggles

Small Countries’ Athletes Face Olympic Struggles

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