Darfur athletes train on as Olympic row rages

By Andrew Heavens

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A world away from the political rows over China and the Olympic Games, a young Darfuri man crouches down at the start of a cracked and pitted running track in the capital of Sudan.

He is Nagmeldin Ali Abubakr, a 21-year-old from Nyala in southern Darfur, and one of Sudan's main medal hopes for the Beijing Games.

Western celebrities and activists have been pushing for Olympic boycotts and protests against China for its alleged failure to press Sudan to end more than five years of killing in Darfur, as well as over its human rights record in Tibet.

But Ali and a small group of other Darfuri athletes are focusing on their training and hoping the run-up to the Games will go as smoothly as possible.

"I have heard some stories. But they don't really concern me," said Ali, taking a break from training in his country's half-built athletics stadium, made of crumbling concrete blocks still spiked with metal construction rods. "We are all Sudanese and I am running for Sudan."

The only thing on Ali's mind right now, he says, is the 16 weeks of training ahead of him before he gets to meet the world's best 400 meter runners in Beijing's gleaming new 'bird's nest' National Stadium in August.

Ali, a sergeant with the Sudanese army who was born in Khartoum, refuses to be drawn further into the Darfur Olympics controversy.

His British-Somali trainer Jamo Aden is less cautious. "I think it is ridiculous what these people are doing," he said, referring to the Olympic protesters.

"They say they are doing it for the people of Darfur. They think it is only about war and genocide. But they don't realize that if they damage these Games, they are going to be hurting Darfuris, running to support themselves and their families."

"TRIBE MEANS NOTHING"

Seven Sudanese athletes have so far qualified for the Olympics but Aden is still hoping to build up the team to 12. "Race or tribe means nothing here on the running track. By the end of it we will have people from all over Sudan."

Ali's family is from Darfur's Zaghawa tribe. Ismael Ahmed Ismael, an 800 meter finalist in the 2004 Athens Olympics, is a member of Darfur's Fur tribe.

Members of both groups took part in the anti-government uprising in 2003 that sparked the current Darfur conflict. Both groups also have a long history of fighting each other.

International experts estimate 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million been driven from their homes in the past five years. Sudan's government countered the 2003 revolt with men and air power and by arming local militia which are accused of targeting civilians by burning villages, pillaging, killing and rape.

Washington calls the violence genocide; Sudan rejects the term and puts the death toll at 9,000, accusing Western media of exaggerating the conflict.