A single bronze is all Egypt could manage in Beijing. Why, asks Inas Mazhar Before the Olympic Games had ended most members of the Egyptian delegation were back home and apart from Hisham Misbah's bronze in judo there were no medals hanging round their necks. Instead, Egypt's team had watched from the sidelines as the world's best sportsmen and women turned in superlative performances in Beijing. How often, one wonders, did our athletes wish they could emulate these world champions? Have our sports officials realised that China, since appearing at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, has chalked up more than 100 gold medals, half of them in the Beijing Games? Since Egypt competed in its first Olympics in 1928 it has managed a total of just 24 medals. Ironically, Egypt applied to host the 2008 Games. The file of the initial bid was subsequently excluded to save the country embarrassment in the later stages. Although sports officials and some athletes said they had little hope of winning any medals before they left for Beijing, no one expected the outcome to be quite so humiliating. After all, in the last Games Egypt managed five medals. The kindest description of the performances of Egypt's 100 strong delegation is that they were modest. Neither of the teams taking part in the handball and volleyball competitions was able to win a single match. Often, the modest standards our sportsmen achieved reflected modest levels of training. Yet even those who had been equipped with expensive training abroad didn't appear to up their performance. President Hosni Mubarak has ordered that a committee be set up to probe the reasons for Egypt's poor performance in China. The high level committee, headed by Moufid Shehab, minister of both the People's Assembly and Shura Council, will report its findings to the prime minister. The same thing has happened every four years for the last three decades. Athletes travel to the Olympics, compete, fail, return. A committee is formed, everybody is furious, the media is angry, two weeks are spent crying over spilt milk and then it's business as usual. Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, famously said: "The important thing is not to win but to take part." It is a maxim Egypt's sports officials seem to have taken to heart. While there is no doubting the truth of de Coubertin's words no one doubts, either, that it would be nice if, while competing, the athletes put in a respectable performance. In 2004, in Athens, the picture was different. Then Egypt won five medals, including its first gold, won by wrestler Karam Gaber. In Beijing, Gaber was knocked-out of the competition after his first match. For those familiar with the way sports organisations operate in Egypt, the failure in Beijing was expected. How could we expect success when Egypt's sports officials, including the heads of federations and National Olympic Committee (NOC) members, spend most of their time arguing with Hassan Sakr, the head of the National Sports Council (NSC)? In Beijing, they continued arguing over the new regulations governing clubs and federations which Sakr introduced just months before the Olympics. The new regulations seek to introduce new blood to the NSC, and have been viewed as an attempt to force out veteran sports officials who refuse to leave their posts. Before the Olympics, the NOC had even complained to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of government interference in its regulations. In doing so it risked Egypt's participation in the Beijing Games. How can federations prepare their athletes under such conditions? Mohamed Shahin, head of Egypt's delegation in Beijing, admitted that there had been disputes among sports officials for months and that most of them went to China carrying their disputes with them. The athletes' performances were low on their lists of concern. Now the world of Egyptian sports faces a great deal of soul-searching. Questions must be asked and answered. Foremost among them is the issue of accountability. Who is to blame for the poor results and what can be done about them? Is it the federations, the NOC or the NSC? Who has the authority to question and confront the federations? The NOC or the NSC? Elsewhere in the world sports federations work under the umbrella of the NOC, a non-governmental body, though in Egypt they work under the NSC. The inevitable result of this parallel system is that both bodies are engaged in endless futile disputes on their designated roles, which is why no investigative committee knows who to praise in the very rare event of victories, or to blame for the far more common. As the committee begins its work we need to stop hurling accusations and instead work together in an attempt to find out what to do about the collapse. We must try and learn from our mistakes as well as from the experience of those countries that have instigated the systems, and instilled the motivation in their athletes, that are necessary for success. It is no longer enough to wring our hands for a couple of weeks and then brush our failings beneath the carpet. That is no why to answer the question what next for a country that performs well on a regional level but so badly at the Olympics? Other countries will now be beginning their next Olympic campaigns. Egypt, alas, is back to square one.
