Baghdad (AFP)

The only time Iraq has won an Olympic medal was at the Rome Games in 1960. The hope of a second is still a distant dream for the delegation present in Tokyo and reduced to training. ... by telephone!

To get their ticket for the trip to Japan, the rower Mohammed Ryadh, retained for the second consecutive time in rowing, and the runner Dana Hussein, specialist in the 200 m, had to do with the means at hand in times of pandemic.

"I have a French trainer and because of the Covid-19, he could not come to Iraq, so he sent me his instructions by messages and I had to implement them alone", explains to AFP this 27-year-old Iraqi.

"So the objective was first and foremost to participate in the Olympics because we know that the medal is not even worth thinking about", he continues, receiving AFP in his modest training camp on the banks of the Tigris in Baghdad.

- Training at the expense of the athlete -

Vincent Tassery, his trainer since 2012, had already taken him to Rio in 2016. That year, 22 Iraqi athletes flew to the Olympics, in disciplines as varied as football, judo, boxing, rowing or athletics.

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Five years later, in addition to Mohammed Ryadh and Dana Hussein, two other athletes received a boost: the 400m runner Taha Hussein and the 10m air pistol specialist Fatima Abbas obtained exemptions from their Respective international federation.

With only four athletes in Tokyo, Iraq, its 40 million inhabitants and its Olympic Committee, frozen in time for legal and political disputes, has the lowest participation in its history.

Dana Hussein, 35, qualified at the last minute for the Olympics by winning the gold medal in the 200m in mid-June at the Pan-Arab athletics championships in Tunisia.

"What is sad," she told AFP just back in Iraq after her victory, "is that we are going to such events and that our authorities do not care."

"I've been struggling to go to Tokyo for a year and a half, I even had to pay a lot of expenses to train abroad because the Athletics Federation has very limited resources." , she continues.

- Turbulence at the Olympic committee -

Besides the lack of equipment in a country ravaged since 1980 by a succession of wars, embargoes and attacks, Iraq has just settled the fate of its Olympic committee.

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Before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, it was the dictator's son, Oudai, who was at its head.

In retaliation, after the invasion led by the Americans, this institution was dissolved, along with all those linked to the fallen regime.

The Olympic Committee - recognized by international bodies since 1948 - has never ceased to oversee Iraq's activities at the Olympic Games, but its legal framework had still not been redefined.

The Iraqi Parliament finally voted in 2020 a law regularizing its statutes, for example giving back to the Olympic Committee control of the millions of dollars of budget.

And in March, he finally got a president: the former footballer Raad Hammoudi, ending a vacancy that had endangered the country's participation in the Tokyo Olympics.

Now, "we need a long-term roadmap, money, equipment, modern sports infrastructure," lists Dana Hussein.

But all that, those present in Japan will think about it later.

For the moment, the objective remains Tokyo and the very special Olympics.

© 2021 AFP