An infographic featuring the final African medal count from the 2012 Olympic Games.
(via globalvoices)
AFRICA AT THE PARALYMPICS: Fatma Omar
Fatma Omar is an Egyptian powerlifter who represented her country at the 2000 Paralympic Games in Syndey, Australia, where she won the gold medal in the 44kg class.
Egypt has been participating in the Paralympic Games since 1976, and has participated in every edition of the Summer Games since then.
Egyptian athletes have won a total of 128 Paralympic medals, of which 41 gold, 39 silver and 48 bronze.Egypt has been particularly strong in athletics and powerlifting.
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AFRICA AT THE PARALYMPICS: Mohamed Allek
Mohamed Allek is a Paralympian athlete from Algeria competing mainly in category T37 sprint events.
In 1996 Mohamed won gold medals in the T37 100m and 200m but missed out on a medal in the 400m. 4 years later in Sydney he made amends and won a clean sweep of the T37 sprint gold medals. In 2004 he was only able to compete in the 200m and only won a bronze. In Beijing in 2008 he competed in the 100m, 200m and as part of the Algerian 4x100m squad but failed to win any medals for the first time.
Algerians have won a total of 38 medals at the Paralympic Games, of which 15 gold, 7 silver and 16 bronze.
(via algerianculture)
London 2012 Olympics - women’s 100 meters final
Nigeria’s Blessing Okagbare who made it all the way to the women’s 100m final finished last during this race.
(image via afrocentrico)
Lithuanian man fined for racial abuse towards Nigeria →
PETRAS Lescinskas, who was arrested during the Lithuania-Nigeria match, has pleaded guilty to racially aggravated offence.
The Lithuanian man who gave a Nazi salute during an Olympic basketball match has become the first person to be convicted of a racially aggravated offence at the Games and fined £2,500.
He was told that his behaviour and that of other Lithuanian fans was “despicable”.
Lescinskas, 36, an accountant from Lithuania, was arrested on Tuesday at the Olympic basketball arena during the Lithuania-Nigeria match. S
Stratford magistrates court was told that he and other Lithuanian supporters had been behaving in such a loud and aggressive manner that other spectators moved away from them. There were “monkey-style noises when Nigerian players had the ball”, the court heard.
Becky Owen, prosecuting, told the court. “He was seen to make a Nazi salute,” while placing his fingers across his lips. Lescinskas, a married man who had come to London for the Games, told police after his arrest that it was common practice in his country to celebrate in that way and it was something he has been doing for some time, the court was told.
He pleaded guilty to a racially aggravated offence under the Public Order Act. He said, through his lawyer, that he was “deeply embarrassed” and “deeply remorseful” about what he had done.
Fining him £2,500 plus £85 costs, district judge Sonia Sims told him: “This type of conduct tarnishes the whole ethos of the Games.” She said that his Nazi salute had been an insult to all those who had lost their lives in the Holocaust and his behaviour was “despicable.”
She said she did not accept that what he had done was acceptable in Lithuania. He was told that he would serve 28 days in prison if he failed to pay the fine.
Undercover police were at the basketball arena after complaints about the behaviour of Lithuanian fans in their previous match against Argentina on Sunday.
First-time Olympic qualifiers Nigeria played current defending champions the USA last night, in what resulted in a record-shattering match.
The West African team suffered a crushing 156-73 defeat, their second loss this week after losing to Lithuania.
During the match the USA’s Andre Igoudala hit a three-point shot with 4:27 left in the game to make it 139-68, surpassing the previous record of 138 scored by Brazil against Egypt in 1988.
Southern Sudanese and Ugandan soccer fans sat on a wall of the overcrowded Juba Stadium during a soccer match in Juba, South Sudan, Tuesday.
OLYMPIC FOCUS: Oscar Pistorius
Despite controversy about the speculated enhancement his running ‘blades’, record-breaking South African Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius has been given the go-ahead to take part in the 400 metres and the 4x400m relay at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
Balotelli hit by fresh race row
An Italian regional councillor has sparked a race row after he posted on his Facebook page a picture of footballer Mario Balotelli working in fields as an immigrant worker. Paolo Ciani, 51, of the right wing Future and Liberty party, mocked up the photograph which showed Balotelli, 21, wearing his Italian shirt and……….
FUCK THIS. He chose these arseholes over his country of birth. He’s their best Talent in Years and instead of giving him all the love they can find, they keep giving him every pile of bullshit they can find. hope He wins everything he can and they achieve nothing.
For #Rwanda’s national cycling team, survivors of its genocide, cycling is proving to have an unlikely healing power.
Eighteen years after the Hutu-Tutsi conflict that claimed an estimated 800,000 lives, Team Rwanda is now gaining international recognition, and one member will compete at this year’s summer Olympics.
With a population of more than 11 million and a land size roughly half the size of Scotland, the east African nation of Rwanda is Africa’s most densely populated country. In Musanze, 96 kilometers outside the capital of Kigali, on one of the few paved roads in northwestern Rwanda, many get around on bicycles, some made entirely of wood.
These wooden bicycles, typically made from acacia trees, evolved as a solution for wheel-barrowing crops from farm to farm. They are heavy, used by farmers to transport loads of up to 300 kg, and with only a thin piece of rubber for a tire, they are difficult to maneuver and brake suddenly. Because of this, they are banned from the main roads.
“If you hit something or somebody, that person would be dangerously hurt,” explains Francois Bizimana, one of the village’s bike makers, who has previously been hospitalized with injuries from an accident on one of his bikes. “You do a lot of damage when you get in an accident with them. Some of us are not used to road safety and rules, so that caused a lot of trouble for us.”