DAKAR, July 28, 2024 - May Paris be the land of achievement for Senegalese athletes. This is the wish of the entire nation. As the Paris 2024 Olympic Games opened on Friday under rain, a symbol of good fortune in popular belief, Senegal is hoping that history will be repeated so that the country can finally count a second medal in its Olympic record.

Indeed, since his first participation in 1964, only 400m hurdler Amadou Dia Ba has managed to win a silver medal in 1988, in Seoul. After 36 years, the question remains entire: what is preventing Senegalese athletes from repeating the Amadou Dia Ba’s Olympic feat? To answer the question, the Sports Press Association has called a panel held a week before the opening of the Games and on which Abdoulaye Thiam and his team have gaven the floor to the actors of the sport to make the diagnosis.

It’s time for Senegal For the Minister of Youth, Sports, and Culture, it's time. “I'm convinced that our country has what it takes to shine on the Olympic stage this year,” Khady Diene Gaye said. And to achieve this, “the Senegalese authorities have mobilized substantial resources to create the optimum conditions for Senegalese athletes to perform,” she added.

For the 33rd Olympiad, eleven athletes will represent Senegal in seven sports disciplines: athletics, judo, swimming, canoeing, taekwondo, fencing and table tennis. They have each received 11 million CFA francs (About 16700 euros) from the State to support their participation.

Better performance conditions But that's not enough, according to the only Senegalese medallist, who was one of the panellists. “If an athlete is going to stand out from the crowd to represent the country in Olympics, he or she has to be in a position to perform well. But in Senegal, nothing is being developed in terms of infrastructure, detection of young talent, or athlete follow-up to achieve good results”, Amadou Dia Ba laments.

From Dia Ba’s expérience, winning Olympic medal require preparation through a process that combines several elements over a long period of time. The silver Olympic medalist said he owes his performances at that time to the support he received from France, where he benefited from the right coaching. “If I'd stayed in Senegal, I'd be like all the others athletes, because there are no facilities, neither adequate infrastructure, to do the sport of your choice,” he stated.

African Center for Athlétisme in Dakar It's this gap that he's trying to fill with the African Center for Athlétisme in Dakar (CAAD) that he runs. Created in 2018, the Dakar center has 14 boarders from Burkina, Cameroon, Gambia, Madagascar, Niger and Senegal. It succeeded in qualifying six athletes for the Paris Olympic Games, including two Senegalese athletes.

But that's not enough, according to Amadou Dia Ba. “In our center, I can say that with our limited resources, we can only train athletes to 70% of their performance level. Consequently, the authorities need to put sport at the heart of their policy and invest in the creation of structures for top-level athletes and in the management of their careers.”

Build future on sport The panel was also an opportunity for the various sports federations to list their difficulties. These are related to the lack of support for athletes, and delays in the preparation of major sporting events. And the public authorities were called for help. “Many federations have reduced sport to training and competition, whereas today, young people want to build their future on sport. So we need to change the paradigm,” former national technical director Souleymane Boune Daouda Diop said. “The State has the right and the duty to invest in its young athletes, because successful young athletes mean that the State has good youth, sports and health policies. Now, a country's sports policy is not a model to be imported, but to be built on the basis of our political, economic, social and cultural realities,” Diop reminded.

The Advocacy of Sport Press He also called for a change in legislation to enable sportsmen and women to make a living from their profession. It's a battle that the sports press naturally joins, according to its president. “Our role is to advocate greater equity in the allocation of resources to athletes. The sports press will continue to play this role,” Sport Press Association Abdoulaye Thiam said.