Children participate in the Olympics at the age of 11 and 12. Why don’t we see Moroccans and Arabs with them?
Heba Press – Sports
Chinese figure skater Cheng Haohao has been named the youngest competitor at the Paris 2024 Olympics, as she is just 11 years and 11 months old when she competes in the park event.
China’s Cheng started playing the sport just four years ago and will become the youngest Chinese athlete to ever compete at the Olympic Games.
Skateboarding was included in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics for the first time, and Cheng will be joined by several other young competitors, including 12-year-old Thai athlete Phareria Sukkasim and 16-year-old Team GB player Skye Brown Only. She is already an Olympic medallist, having won bronze in skateboarding in Tokyo.
The young age of these champions or children participating in the Olympic Games makes us wonder why we don’t see African and Arab children with them? Why don’t we see children and adolescents from Morocco, Egypt and others participating in Olympic sports from a young age?
When we were young, we heard about school sports, and most of us never participated in them, because to participate, you often had to be the son of the principal or teacher or affiliated with one of the notables of the city. For those who choose to participate, participating is not about performing feats and discovering heroes, but rather about traveling at the expense of taxpayers with public money and getting “pocket money”, as simple as that.
Few are the champions discovered in school sports tournaments, most in athletics. Due to the large number of Moroccans running at the “end of bread”, we now have champions in this sport, and most, if not all, of them are self-taught and have built themselves up, relying on the support and sacrifices of their parents and on personal assiduity, and “if they rely on school sports, they will see a bear standing at the gate of Lysiat.”
We feel sorry for our country when we see an 11-year-old Chinese boy participating in the Olympics, and our memory takes us back to some of the “trash” coaches and officials of this country who are proficient in the phrase “You are still too young to play.” They have wasted generations of talent so that their children and loved ones can benefit from it. They have reached the top, but they have not given the opportunity to those who deserved to emerge, and to them we say: fear God. in this country, and “Let them come to me, are you giving them the opportunity?” They will spare no effort to defend the colors of the Moroccan flag, even if it costs them their lives…
