Its first contestant may have been knocked out of the boxing competition early on in the Games but the Gambia National Olympic Committee won’t be returning home without a victory for its people.

Granted it may not be the gold medal the nation craves, unless either of Fatou Tiyana and Suwaibou Sanneh pull the shock of the Olympics in the athletics programme starting on Friday, but it’s a victory still to savour argues George Gomez, the GNOC’s long-serving executive secretary recently elevated to director. “The International Olympic Committee has voted The Gambian delegation the ‘best dressed team’ of the opening ceremony parade,” a beaming Gomez told gambiasports.gm some four days after the glittering ceremony last Friday formally launching the Beijing Olympic Games.

This is just the kind of feel-good story the Olympic Games represents for small under-resourced countries like the Gambia which have very little chance of challenging the dominance of powerful nations like the United States, the United Kingdom, etc which give their athletes the best training opportunities or naturally-gifted countries like Kenya and Jamaica which seem to produce long distance and sprint athletes effortlessly.

“To us this is a big achievement,” Gomez sought to explain, “simply because the Olympic Games is not only about competing and winning the gold medal. “If out of 204 nations the Gambia is singled out for recognition for anything, I think this is a great honour brought to our nation.

“The GNOC is here not as a group of individuals but as a team representing our dear Motherland, the Gambia.

“That is why as we stepped into the stadium the announcer did not shout “GNOC” to introduce us but instead it was “The Gambia” that was called out.”

Made by a local seamstress the outfit worn by the Gambian marchers on Friday is a light-blue three-piece traditional fit known as “grand bouba”.

“Even before we got to the parade everybody in the [Olympic] village who saw our dress told us that it was beautiful and asked to have a group photo with us,” Gomez gushed.

 The GNOC leadership is now in talks with the IOC to agree on a date for the presentation of one of the dresses for display in the IOC Museum.
It will be the first item from The Gambia that will be exhibited at the global sports museum.

by Peter Gomez in Beijing