Dream come true for 2-member Palestinian squad

Gaza: Swimmer Samar Nassar said tears of joy filled her eyes when she was told she would carry the Palestinian flag at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

"I never believed I would represent my country in an international championship or go to the Olympics. The dream has become a reality," she told Reuters by telephone from Jordan, where she is based.

The 22-year-old 100-metre breaststroke swimmer and athlete Rami Theeb are the two Palestinians representing their people at the Games in Australia starting on September 15.

For Palestinians, the prestigious event is more than just a chance to win medals. It is an opportunity to score political points as they hold the colours of their black, red, white and green flag high at an international forum.

After years of peace negotiations with Israel, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat plans to declare an independent state as early as September 13 and has been trying to garner support.

In Sydney, the Palestinian flag will fly among those of 199 sovereign countries that belong to the Olympic movement.

Nassar and Theeb, who is competing in the 20-km (12-mile) walk, will be the second Palestinian team to attend the Olympics since self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza started in 1994.Palestinians consider their participation at the Olympics a symbol of their emerging status as a state.

Mohammad al-Bakri, a member of the Palestinian Olympic Committee in Gaza, said it was "politically significant".

"It is an opportunity to put the name of Palestine on the international sports map as well as on the political map," he said. "It will be a source of pride to see the Palestinian flag flying among those of other sovereign countries."

Flying the flag symbolic

With the absence of full statehood, international sporting events are an opportunity to express national pride.

The Palestinian soccer team is aiming to participate in the qualifying games of the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea. The last time it did so was in 1934 as a British mandate territory, when Palestine lost to Egypt in qualification games.

Theeb and Nassar will be the first to fly the flag at an international gathering if the state is declared next month.

Both athletes trained outside the West Bank and Gaza, which will form the nucleus of the future state but still lack much of the needed economic and social infrastructure.

Bakri said they were going to Sydney more to put in a "honourable performance" than to win medals."Medals can only be achieved through great facilities and great capabilities. We have an ailing sports infrastructure that needs mountainous efforts to be rehabilitated," he said.

Their stories of displacement are not unlike those of many other Palestinians.

Theeb is a refugee whose family was forced to flee to Egypt during the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel. He has just finished six months of intensive training in Germany and came fourth in his event at the Pan Arab Games in Jordan in 1999.

After Nassar was born in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, her physician father took the family to Jordan. Nassar, who has a bachelor's degree in molecular biology, works in her father's laboratory in Amman while she trains.

"I doubled my three hours daily training after I found out about my nomination for the games in Sydney," she said.

Struggles and statehood

Nassar said Palestinian athletes needed more technical and financial support. "We lack facilities," she said, adding that none of about 50 swimming pools in the West Bank was adequate for Olympic calibre training.

Because many Palestinians have been displaced, officials sought out athletes living abroad.

"Nassar and Theeb were the best in Palestine and abroad and that's why they were chosen," Bakri said. "Every Palestinian who is qualified can represent Palestine regardless of residence."

Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation signed a peace accord in Norway's capital, Oslo, in September 1993, which gave Palestinians control over most of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.

In light of the difficulties, Palestinian athletes have reoriented their perception of what it means to be a winner.

Majed Abu Mraheel, a runner from Gaza, represented Palestinians in the 1996 Olympics, the first since self-rule.

"Despite the poor facilities at home, Abu Mraheel was not the last to get to the finish line," Bakri said.

(c) Reuters Limited.