Cameroon ready for Rio Olympics

The declaration was made by the president of the Olympic Committee in a press conference on Friday.

Three weeks to the kick off of the 31st Olympiad to take place in Rio de Janeiro, the Cameroon Olympic team is ready for competition. The qualification and preparation of athletes by the “Bientôt Rio” steering committee is now over and financial resources towards Cameroon’s participation in the games available.

The declaration was made by the president of the Cameroon National Olympic and sports Committee, Colonel Kalkaba Malboum in a press conference on recently in Yaounde.

The colonel revealed that the official wear of Team Cameroon will be the traditional dress from the North West region and the flag bearer of the team will be Seyi Ntsengue Dieudonné Wilfred, a rising boxing star who is African champion and won gold during the Olympic qualifying event in Yaounde.

In all Cameroon will be taking part in the games with 24 athletes, 12 trainers and six officials taking the total count of the Olympic team to 42 who will be accompanied by other special invitees to the global vent.

The Cameroon Olympic Team will be equipped by Zeus, an Italian sports equipment company. Cameroon will be taking part in the games in six sports disciplines namely; athletics, boxing, weightlifting, judo, wrestling and volleyball.

Colonel Kalkaba said Cameroon will not be going to Rio for mere participation but to win as the country had done in the past, saying Cameroon has chances of winning medals in boxing with Seyi and Ndam Njikam saying the athletes had a good preparation both in and out of the country with some benefiting from Olympic scholarships.

The boxing team has been training in Ukraine except from Ndam Njikam who is training in France while the wrestling team is training in Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire and Cameroon simultaneously. The volleyball team is fine-tuning training in Sao Paulo-Brazil. The whole team will converge in Yaounde before departure for Brazil.

He said they will still to spell out modalities for the payment of bonuses reassuring the public that every athlete will receive his or her due. He frowned against the habit of athletes running away during the games like in London 2012 and called on parents to caution their children not to tarnish the image of the country by running away.