Poverty makes preparation even harder

Unlike other athletes preparing for the Olympic Games in Sydney, Vicente Chura has more to worry about than beating his personal best. The Peruvian long-distance runner wonders where his next meal is coming from and how much more pavement pounding his battered trainers can withstand.

While many wealthy nations spend millions on their Olympic teams, athletes like Chura are struggling against poverty even before stepping into the sporting arena. In Peru, one of the poorest countries in South America, the majority of Olympic athletes lack basic equipment, coaching facilities and even food.

Chura lives high in the Andes where the air is thin and the temperature often plummets below zero. He trains in a concrete-grey gym with a few rickety machines and ageing free weights. "The facilities here are very bad," he said. "Our equipment is old and I can't afford to travel to the capital for regular meetings with the Olympic coach.

"He has to send his training instructions to me by post. Naturally this affects my preparations because it's not the same as having a personal coach who can deal with difficulties as they arise."

The 32-year-old, who has thick black hair and a sinewy runner's frame, shares a small house with his aunt and uncle in one of the poor districts of Puno, a town in the south of Peru near the border with Bolivia. With the run-up to the Olympics he has had to spend much longer hours training for Sydney, which in turn has caused difficulties in holding down his much-needed job.

Without sponsorship, Chura relies on the goodwill of his family and his local sporting federation to help out with food, dietary supplements and basic equipment.

"An athlete's diet is very important because no matter how hard and how long you train, your performance is always affected without enough food and vitamins," he said. "Training for the Olympics is causing me financial hardship. But I can't stop because it is an honour to compete."

Chura is not the only Peruvian athlete struggling against poverty to maintain even basic fitness levels. According to Ivan Dibos, a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) who also sits on Peru's own Olympic executive, other athletes are also experiencing the sharp end of economic hardship.

"Medical tests showed us that some of our Olympic athletes are suffering from malnutrition," he said. "Some of them are very poor and cannot afford to buy food for themselves. This means they are less prepared for the Games than they should be."

After listening to first-hand tales of his athletes' struggles, Dibos arranged for food handouts to be made. Now, individual sporting federations are giving packets of dried spaghetti to their sports men and women.

"Unfortunately we can't provide all the food they need because our country is very poor and sport is low-down on the government's list of priorities," said Dibos. "But we are trying to do something to help. The problem is that these young athletes often share their food at home so they are still not getting the full benefit of this extra supplement.

"This worries us because our aim is to make sure our athletes are in good physical condition. But if a man's family is starving you can't force him to stop giving food, can you?"

Peru's athletes are not alone in trying to stave off the worst effects of poverty while maintaining the physical prowess necessary for the Olympic Games. Many of the world's poorer nations - who will be sending modest squads to Sydney to compete in a limited number of sports - are unsuccessfully juggling poverty with sporting success.

Last year, the IOC's Olympic Solidarity programme spent £18 million helping athletes with living expenses, coaching and equipment costs. Of this figure, just £4.8 million went to the developing world - with the rest being distributed among other member nations.

However, with the IOC notching up an income of almost nearly £600 million per year, the charitable work of Olympic Solidarity amounts to little more than three per cent of their total revenue. For an athlete like Churo, though, every little bit helps to get closer to his dreams of an Olympic medal.

"I've never been to the Olympics before and I want to give it my best shot because it might be my only chance," he said. "The only thing I wish is that we Peruvians were on an equal footing to begin with.

"No one would believe that an Olympic athlete has to train on a muddy running track, logged with water, using trainers with holes in them. But I do and I'm not alone."