No medals for Maghreb Olympians on day one
10/08/2008
Olympic teams from the Maghreb made a good showing on Saturday, though none have secured medals.
Mawassi Lahcen in Casablanca, Nazim Fethi in Algiers and Mona Yahia in Tunis contributed to this report – 10/08/08
 [Getty Images] Tunisia Azza Besbes celebrates after winning the women's individual sabre eliminations round against French Leonore Perrus. |
Algerian judoka Meriem Moussa (-48 kg) won her first-round match at the Beijing Games on Saturday (August 9th), by yuko against Gabon's Sandrine Ilendou. The best performing Maghreb judoka is Algerian Souria Haddad, the only non-Asian to advance to the semi-finals in the women's 52-kg category. In the semis, she will face Chinese Xian Dongmei, who eyes a second Olympic gold.
Fellow Algerian Omar Rebahi was knocked out by Uzbekistan's Rishod Sobirov after reaching the men’s 60kg round of 32, losing by ippon.
Also in the men's -60kg competitions on Saturday, Moroccan judoka Younes Ahmadi was eliminated after losing by points in his first matches against European champion Ludwig Paischer of Austria. Paischer went on to win silver against Minho Choi of Korea, who took the gold medal.
Youness Ahmadi, on whom Morocco was pinning great hopes, wasn't able to qualify, although he had a second opportunity in a rematch against Britain's Craig Fallon. Fallon ended up taking seventh place.
Tunisia's Chahnez Mbarki lost to Ukraine's Lyudmyla Lusnikova in the first round of judo 48-kg preliminaries.
In boxing, Algerian Abdelhafid Benchabla posted the biggest success of the first day. The Algerian light heavyweight defeated Dinesh Kumar of India after the official stopped the fight for the 3rd injury recovery.
Moroccan boxer Said Rachidi was eliminated after losing in the 75kg category to Bakhtiyar Artayev of Kazakhstan.
Boxer Mourad Sahraoui from Tunisia lost 3-1 to China's Zhang Xiaoping in the light-heavyweight competition.
In their first match on Saturday, the Algerian women's volleyball team lost 3-0 in sets to Brazil. Algeria plays its second match in Group B against Serbia on Monday.
In rowing, Chaouki Dries came fifth in his group with a time of 7:57.65.
Meanwhile, Moroccan archer Khadija Abbouda took 64th and last place in the archery competitions.
Tunisian Azza Besbes became the first ever African quarter-finalist in fencing in an international competition. She qualified for the quarter-finals after beating South Africa's Chetty Jyoti, Leonore Perrus of France and Canadian Olga Ovtchinnkova, but was eliminated on Saturday in the quarter-finals of the women's sabre event by 2006 world champion Rebecca Ward of the United States, who won the bronze medal.
Four Tunisian athletes will compete Sunday (August 10th) in boxing, weight lifting, swimming and tennis.
Light welterweight boxer Hamza Hassine will face Iran's Morteza Sepahvandi, who won fifth place in the 2007 World Championship.
In weight lifting, Tunisian Khelil Maouia, who won 3 gold medals in the world junior weightlifting championship in Cali, Colombia, will be competing in the 56-kg category. He will face fierce competition from the highly experienced Chinese, Korean and Turkish teams.
Selima Sfar will represent Tunisia in the tennis competition, with an opening match against Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki.
On Sunday, Tunisian swimming fans will be focused on Oussama Mellouli, who will participate in the 200m freestyle preliminaries. He also qualified on Saturday to compete in the 400m freestyle finals.
In the finals, Mellouli will face seven other swimmers: Zhang Lin (China), Park Tae-Hwan (South Korea), Larsen Jensen (US), Nikita Lobintsev (Russia), Grant Hackett (Australia), Peter Vanderkaay (US) and Yuriy Prilukov (Russia).