West Africa - what's going on

lack of funding ?

Too hot.

lack of interest?

Cameroon are quick on their toes.

Long standing aversion to having things around their necks.

Lack of nutrition, clean water, corrupt governments, civil war, opression, aids the last thing on their minds is Table Tennis or diving hth

Is a bit shocking that, one imagines that the families with the resources to train their children will also be the families with the resources to get them out of there.

In the previous 3 Olympiads the region garnered around 5-6 medals, so 2012 is a massive drop off. It's funny you mention corruption Ylime as the only medal winning country ( Gabon ) has a notoriously corrupt Prime Minister with whom I share my surname ( not proud of this ). However he is sports mad, and spends a lot on it ( co-hosted the recent African Nations Cup ). It just shows that talent, enthusiasm and hard work isn't enough usually - money for professional coaching programmes and money for direct payments to athletes matter just as much if not more.

money for direct payment to judges can also be an issue in the boxing!

lack of funding ?

Why is that funny please?

East Africans can run faster because they needed to run away fron Arab slave traders.

Several of those countries are good at football and thats where
the real money is,theres only room for one Usain Bolt but hundreds
of footballers can earn mega money.

On the plus side at least we are spared the horror of any Flabby MPs tweeting about their success - provided the West African athletes were black of course.

they're all over here 

I think we were funding around £25m a sport. Their lads are probably lucky to get a tracksuit and trainers bought for them.

You'd have thought that the region would have held steady with 5-6 medals - almost all the countries have had economic growth ( albeit from a lower base ) and have a growing proportion of young people compared to Europe and North America. At least things can only improve.
The way the UK is going with its ageing population, the day will come when someone aged between 20-30 and not obese is probably a county standard sports player by default. And if you believe this quote in the guardian 'No Olympics host country has ever seen an increase in sports participation after the Games.' the UK will never feel as good ( or healthy ) again as it does right now.

South Africa - 6

Aug 12, 2012 -- 10:56AM, bongo wrote:

In the previous 3 Olympiads the region garnered around 5-6 medals, so 2012 is a massive drop off. It's funny you mention corruption Ylime as the only medal winning country ( Gabon ) has a notoriously corrupt Prime Minister with whom I share my surname ( not proud of this ). However he is sports mad, and spends a lot on it ( co-hosted the recent African Nations Cup ). It just shows that talent, enthusiasm and hard work isn't enough usually - money for professional coaching programmes and money for direct payments to athletes matter just as much if not more.

There are just not enough structures and money for this, Obame lives and trains in France for years, he could have never reached this level in Benin.
It applies anyway to all Africa, except South Africa which is a special case, and Ethiopia + Kenya who are traditionally over the lot on long distance running

Not Benin, Gabon

Nigerians too busy scamming people.

Why would they want to spend money on training for sport when they can buy guns and have a civil war

As you know tmp there are medals for shooting, if only there was medals for Investment Opportunities.

Recently had an email from Danjuma Sule, one of the sons of major Gen Gumel Danjuma Sule, the late Nigeria's former minister of mines. Basically he said they badly need funding to help with a number of athletics programs for Nigerian youth, but his late father had fixed the sum of $30,000.000.00 in the Central Bank of Nigeria on behalf of the youth sports foundation, but they've lost the whole of the documents as a result of fire, which gutted his house 3 months ago.
The family attorney advised him to liaise with a foreigner who will act as the foreign partner of Intartrade Ventures Ltd and will purport that the money in question is urgently needed overseas for an important project. Then after sorting this and taking a heavy commission (I'm no mug). I'll be transferring the money back to the Nigerian athletics foundation.
HTH

Team Lagos are still unassailable where Gold Medals for Advance Fee Fraud,  institutional  c o r r u p t i o n  and general rampant criminality up for grabs, even with such tough competition from within the continent of Africa.

Still, no doubt as with Somalian crime, it's bound to be all Britain's fault because of the legacy of slavery.

Those african slaves taken back to the U.S.A. seem to have done okay in long run

Those Africans left, their descendants, don't seem to have doe so well

What is there to apologise for, did millions of them a favour imo

the day will come when someone aged between 20-30 and not obese is probably a county standard sports player by default. And if you believe this quote in the guardian

___________

i don't think younger people are getting less ,it's just that older people are getting more

I think you're right coachbuster from an analytic viewpoint. The numbers of UK young seems to be holding - it's the rest of the population that's growing - and the rest of the world too.

I'm still not sure as to why 164 million Nigerians came up with nothing, compared to 4,8,12 years ago. They've been totalled this year. There's been a slight reduction over time in talent going into the US collegiate system, laments in the Lagos newspaper that sports gets literally nothing from gambling and the lottery, and loss of playing fields due to land sales ( building space is at a premium in the city ), so maybe a combination of factors to explain the west african wipeout.

A lot of ( ahem moderated ) criticism in their press that the 2.3 billion N that was spent ( about 9 million GBP ) was spent by officials who spent their time in London back at the hotel enjoying the action on the TV.

It looks like a total calamity for West Africa again.
Half way through the Olympics and you could drive through every country along the coast from Algeria to Namibia passing through massive population centres like Nigeria and you would find no Olympic medallists to celebrate so far.

Maybe they haven't been brainwashed into thinking that relatively trivial things like sport...don't really matter.

Top tip:

Football ( Olympics ) - Saturday at 5pm, Nigeria play Honduras in the bronze medal match. Nigeria are unlikely to win this match because they, ( and all their neighbouring countries ) just do not win Olympic medals in anything close to their share of the world's young population. Therefore lay Nigeria at 1.70 to win in 90 minutes.

I *personally* will fund the Gabon olympic team with my vast betting bank on one condition and one only:

They adopt "The Funky Gabon" by the Goodies for medal ceremonies .

I'd supply the sheets for the party if Togo win a medal.