XXVIII Olympiad in Athens, Greece-Seychelles team leave Fright |06 August 2004

Canoeist Tony Lespoir, swimmers Shrone Austin and Bertrand Bristol and weightlifter Richard Scheer will fly to Dubai on board Air Seychelles before taking a connecting flight to Athens where they will join Laser sailor Allan Julie, the first local athlete to enter the Olympic village on Wednesday August 4.

As for the other four athletes – Kitson Julie (boxing), Evans Marie and Céline Laporte (track and field athletics) and Francis Labrosse (judo) – they are following overseas training camps and will be travelling to Athens during the course of next week.

A second group, comprising mostly coaches and officials, is to leave the country on Monday August 9 for Athens.

The officials and coaches include Patrick Nanty (principal secretary for sports), Antonio Gopal (president of the Seychelles National Olympic Committee), Robert  Auguste (secretary  general of the Seychelles National Olympic Committee), Ivan Roberts (chef de mission), Kenneth Sherwin, Don Oyao (sports doctors), Hebetty Hoareau (team leader), Papakokkinos Panyiotis (attache), Gerry Legras (boxing coach), Philip Albert (canoeing coach), Joseph Adam, Olivier Pauly (athletics coaches), Cedric Thomas (judo coach), Alain Alcindor (sailing head of delegation), Kajetan Glinkiewez (sailing coach), Hazel Austin (swimming head of delegation), Paul Fanchette (swimming coach) and William Dixie (weightlifting coach).

Seychelles Nation's sports journalist Gerard Govinden will accompany the team to Athens
Of the nine athletes only two – Allan and Kitson Julie – qualified to participate in the Games, while the others will be competing in Athens after having received wild cards from tripartite commissions on the basis of results achieved during different continental and international qualifiers.

Apart from two-time Olympian Allan Julie (in 1996 Atlanta, USA, and in 2000 Sydney, Australia) and Labrosse (in 2000 Sydney, Australia), all the other athletes will be making their Olympic Games debut in Athens.

Seychelles will also be represented in the youth camp organised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by swimmer Steven Mangroo and female sailor Beth Gertrude. The two young athletes were chosen by the Seychelles National Olympic Committee (Snoc).

Gertrude has also been chosen by lottery by the organisers of the Olympic Games to be a torch bearer and she will participate in the torch relay scheduled for August 12.
This will be Seychelles' sixth participation in the Olympics.

The previous participations were in Moscow, Soviet Union in 1980 (12 athletes – nine from athletics and three from boxing), in Los Angeles, USA in 1984 (nine athletes – five from athletics and four from boxing), in Barcelona, Spain in 1992 (11 athletes – four from athletics, one from sailing, four from swimming and two from boxing), in Atlanta, USA in 1996 (nine athletes – two from athletics, one from swimming, three from boxing, two from sailing and one from weightlifting), in Sydney, Australia in 2000 (nine athletes – two from athletics, one from weightlifting, two from swimming, one from judo and three from sailing).

C. J.