Triumph in the face of adversity

Sometime in the next fortnight a small squad of African athletes and officials will land at Sydney airport. It's unlikely anyone will notice them pass through the arrivals lounge, amid the hubbub generated by other big-name competitors. They deserve more.

For although the six-strong team from Somalia is unlikely to return home with a fistful of medals, its athletes are models of the Olympic ideal.

They have trained with old runners and without training facilities. They travel on a shoestring budget, barely able to afford the $50 nightly cost of staying in the Olympic Village.

And, uniquely among competitor nations, they come from a country with no central government and no rule of law.

Somalia has been in the grip of violent anarchy for almost 10 years. After dictator Siad Barre was toppled in 1991, the country spent the first half of the decade in the grip of a vicious civil war and the second half under the control of nefarious clan warlords. Much of the capital, Mogadishu, has been ground into rubble and those with the biggest guns still dictate the law.

To pluck an Olympic squad out of that chaos requires more than just solid qualifying times. But the six athletes have come to symbolise the resilience of ordinary Somalis in the face of terrible adversity. And, as a recent peace initiative begins to bear fruit, they also carry the torch of hope for the future.

"Our country is in ruins and destroyed. You can't imagine how meaningful it will be for me to put our flag in Sydney. I feel so lucky," says Safiya Hussein (19) proudly, the only female athlete on the team.

Because there is no government in Somalia, the athletes will buy their passports from a trader in Mogadishu market before leaving. They have scraped together money for plane tickets and accommodation with the help of the International Olympic Committee and a local businessman.

Abdullahi Ahmed Turabi, the secretary general of the national Olympic committee, has pinned a massive poster of Sydney Harbour and the Opera House on the wall opposite his desk in downtown Mogadishu.

"This is not about winning medals. Since we have no government this is about showing the international community that we still exist," he said.

But if Sydney is where they are going, then another poster behind him told a different story about where Somalis are coming from. A glossy aerial photo showed a smart national stadium, tennis courts, a gym and a swimming pool, all enclosed by a line of neatly trimmed green trees. When it was built by Barre in 1974, Mogadishu stadium was the most modern sports facility in east Africa. Now it is barely standing.

The bleachers are raked with bullet holes and a 106mm gun has punched a hole the size of a car in the once-proud front facade. Part of the stand has buckled and collapsed.

A black-humoured slogan sprayed across the scoreboard reads "Every country is built by its own people". And jogging down the middle of the dusty, weed-strewn running track is marathon hopeful Abukar Ahmed Mohamed (19).

Abukar lost dozens of friends and relatives in the clan fighting. At one point his own family had to flee their home in the southern city of Baidoa.

Now he is aiming not only for gold but also for a world record for Somalia.

"So many people are congratulating me and have great hope. Their pride is on our shoulders," he says.

But he must first overcome several hurdles. Abukar only converted from soccer to running last year and ran his first race at the Arab League games in Jordan. It was not a glorious debut.

He has never run a competitive marathon in his life. But, with a claimed training time of 2 hours 15 minutes, he says he will give the marathon kings from neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia a run for their money in Sydney.

Safiya Hussein is also limbering up in the bomb-blasted stadium. Not only is the 400-metre runner the only woman around, she is also the only athlete with her entire body, save her face and arms, covered. Muslim traditionalists have railed against her participation in the games, saying a woman's place is in the home and not on the track. But she remains undeterred.

"When I went to the All-Africa Games last year I didn't really feel good with all these semi-naked people around," she says, with one of her 10 brothers standing nearby. "But it doesn't bother me that much. The training was very good and I'd like to go back."

These athletes will not be burdened by a weight of expectation. Somalia has never won an Olympic medal although this time they are pinning their hopes on Ibrahim Mahoumed Adan, a 1,500-metre runner who won gold in last year's Arab League Games and is currently training in the US. But others will be lucky to make it out of the early heats.

Absemet Hussein Jumale (18), trains on the rough tennis courts of the old Italian Cultural Centre, a place where Europeans once sipped wine on sunny afternoons but has since been stripped to a shell by mortar fire.

As the number 16 seed for east and central Africa, he is unlikely to cause a huge upset in Sydney. His last major outing was to a tournament in Uganda where he didn't do well because "the hotel food didn't agree with me".

He was introduced to tennis by an uncle who later died during the clan fighting. His normally cheery face clouds over when asked to discuss the manner of his death. "If I talk about it my body will ache," he says. His main objective at Sydney will be to "play well and honour the memory of my uncle".

Somalis have fresh hope that the days of bloodshed are over. A recently elected transitional parliament could herald a return to government but it faces stiff opposition from the warlords.

When Absemet and his team-mates carry the Somali blue and white flag around the Olympic Stadium next month, their achievement will lie in just getting there and reminding the world that Somalia hasn't gone away.