Today, Eritrean cyclist Daniel Teklehaimanot arrived first on a second category climb in the mountains of Sardinia island, in the second stage of the Giro d’Italia race.
FC Trias got its name because it is a fusion of three earlier clubs.
However, the club grounds are also not far from the Winterswijk quarry. Where muschelkalk stone from the Triassic, over 200 million years ago, is mined. The Triassic got its name from its three distinct rock layers. The Dutch word for Triassic is Trias. In the Winterswijk quarry, recently, a Triassic beetle was discovered; and,earlier, Triassic marine reptiles.
Most players live in a large trailer park at Skaramagas, an industrial zone west of Athens, where metal containers are turned into shoebox-shaped homes.
They train during the week, and on Sundays play in an amateur league against teams made up of professional groups like lawyers, telecom workers, and accountants.
Football’s governing body in Europe, UEFA, sponsors the refugee team as well as Greek charity Organisation Earth, which spearheaded the idea for the team.
Football is the main source of entertainment for many of the 60,000-odd refugees in Greece, housed in army camps, abandoned factories and disused facilities of the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Nearly 9,000 refugees have been moved from Greece to other European Union countries, but the EU says the speed of relocation is still just over half the target rate.
Several Hope players have been lost to the relocation scheme, but most are expecting a long wait in Greece.
“I think the main thing is that we’ve created a group of friends, a family with bonds of friendship,” Nikopolidis said.
Footballing refugees win (almost) everything in Greece
Today, 07:08
“Run, run”, the players shout on the soccer field to a team-mate sprinting past the high fences. The training of the refugee team is about to begin, on the artificial grass field of Atromitos amateur club at Piraeus. “That’s Tufan, from Afghanistan. He’s always late,” says a laughing Syrian boy.
That is a well-known problem, assistant coach Abdullah Sulleman, who comes from the Iraqi city of Mosul, explains. Public transport is irregular from the refugee camp. By bus and metro it takes about an hour to get to the training site.
There in Skaramagas refugee camp all began last year. It is one of the largest camps in Greece, with more than 3000 people living in container houses. Many are waiting for a verdict on their asylum procedure, relocation to EU member states or family reunification.
That often long wait leads to boredom and frustration. Boys and young men tried to kill time with – of course – football.
“Then I thought why we do not make a team,” says Abdullah, who has done sports training in Iraq. “We started with a ball, without sportswear or soccer shoes. On a simple concrete ground.” …
By calls on Facebook, and after selections, eventually 25 players were selected, a trainer and doctor appointed and a technical manager. He is a well-known person: ex-keeper Antonis Nikopolidis from the Greek national team who became European champions in 2004. …
“We now have a team of players from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen and recently from Morocco and Tanzania. They play in an amateur competition, against, eg, company teams, and are doing very well.”
“We’ve only lost two times,”said 23-year-old Mohammad Omar Shurdji of Damascus proudly. “Winning more than twenty times,” adds Abdessadek Chahine, a tall Moroccan boy from Casablanca, who has lived for a year and a half in Greece. Who also plays at a Greek club. 25-year-old Mohamed Wael Sefi played at an Aleppo club before leaving his country. “Soccer is all, it’s my life,” he says.
What the young players of this team, most of them between the ages of 18 and 25, have in common is that they played competition in their homeland, some at high level. Their dream is to play at a European club.
A mud-running event in Amersfoort was canceled at the last minute because lapwings nest on the ground. The organization of the Mudrun Fun in Vathorst district discovered the birds yesterday and concluded that they will not run today.
A few hundred people would participate in the event, including children. The intention was that they would run on a trail with mud, obstacles and a water slide. It was the fifth edition of the event.
Yesterday nothing seemed to be wrong; then the organization was alerted that the birds were nesting. The lapwing is a protected native species and has been declining in numbers. The organization therefore considered it irresponsible to let the event continue, despite the permits already issued by the municipality.
It has taken 28 years for the first charges to be laid against any of those culpable in the killing of 96 Liverpool football fans. They were crushed to death on April 15, 1989 at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium, South Yorkshire: here.
RELATIVES of the 96 people killed in the Hillsborough football stadium disaster looked on in court yesterday as former chief constable Sir Norman Bettison faced criminal charges relating to the tragedy: here.
This video is about the Greek national football team unexpectedly winning the 2004 European championship by beating favourites Portugal in the final match.
A big factor in the Greek victory was their goalkeeper Antonis Nikopolidis. He stopped many dangerous shots by Cristiano Ronaldo and other Portuguese players.
Song by Sidney Mills & Jon Notar, and Groove Guild.
Download the Bobsled Song … and press play the exact moment our Jamaican Bobsled Team begins their big race … . You’ll be amazed how the song syncs perfectly with the rhythms of the bobsled track itself.
Their practice times on the ice run are fast – and they are aiming for a historic first. No bobsleigh team from Nigeria or any country in Africa has competed at the Olympics.
The team’s dream is on the verge of coming true. The Nigerian bobsleigh team only needs to complete three more competitions to qualify for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.
This video says about itself:
9 December 2016
Nigerian track stars Seun Adigun, Akuoma Omeoga and Ngozi Onwumere are determined to make history by being the first bobsled team to represent the African continent at the Olympics.
