By Mohamed Assed.
Tripoli, 25 August:
Libya will be represented by . . .[restrict]two Libyan athletes in the London 2012 Paralympic Games. The 14th edition of the Games, which will be held from 29 August to 9 September, will be the biggest ever with 4,200 athletes from 162 nations.
The Paralympic Games come right after the end of the showy Olympics in the swinging city of London. The Games are an international multi-sport event (21 sports events in the London 2012 Summer Paralympic Games) where athletes with physical disabilities, such as amputations, blindness and Cerebral Palsy, compete.
Abdulrazag Al-Babaa
Abdulrazag Al-Babaa is the 38-year-old Libyan Paralympic weightlifter who will represent Libya at Games. Al-Babaa, who will compete in the 75-Kilogramme category weightlifting sports event, previously represented Libya in many sporting occasions. He won the silver medal when he competed in the 75-Kilogramme weightlifting contest of the African Weightlifting Championships in Egypt in 2005.
2009 was a major year, full of sporting success for our Libyan champion; Abdulrazag won the gold medal of the 75-Kilogramme weightlifting contest of the Fazaa Athletics Tournament in Dubai. In the same year, he won the silver medal of the 75-Kilogramme weightlifting contest of the Maghreb Weightlifting Tournament held in Morocco, and won a second silver medal in the African Weightlifting Championships, this time competing in the 82.5-Kilogramme weightlifting contest.
Al-Babaa competed also in the 2007 Arab Games, (ranking 6th); in the second edition of the Fazaa Athletics Tournament in Dubai, in 2010 (ranking 5th); in the World Weightlifting Championships in 2010, in Malaysia (ranking 14th); and in the fourth edition of the Fazaa Athletics Tournament in Dubai, in 2012, ranking in 12th position and thus securing his berth at the London 2012 Summer Paralympic Games.
Hamza Al-Hamali
Hamza Al-Hamali is the 25-year-old Libyan Paralympic javelin thrower who will represent Libya at the London 2012 Summer Paralympic Games. Al-Hamali, born in 1987, previously participated in five major sporting events racking up four medals in the process. He first competed in the International Athletics Tournament of Tunisia in 2010, and then he won his first medal (Bronze) in the same tournament one year later in 2011. In 2012, Hamza added three more medals to his record; a third participation in the International Athletics Tournament of Tunisia in 2012 brought him a silver medal. He also won a gold medal and a silver medal when he competed in the Sharjah International Athletics Tournament and the Fazaa Athletics Tournament in Dubai, respectively.
Libya at the Summer Paralympics
Libya has so far won its first and only medal in the Paralympic Games, when Abdelrahim Hamed took bronze in the men’s over 100-kilogtramme weightlifting in 2000 in Sydney, lifting 235 Kilogrammes. Libya’s first participation in the Summer Paralympic Games was back in 1996 in Atlanta, United States, when it participated with four representatives to compete in the weightlifting sports event.
Since then, Libya partook at every edition of the Summer Paralympics. In the 2000 Summer Paralympics, Libya sent its largest ever delegation with three judokas, two weightlifters and a sitting volleyball team.
Ghazala Mohammed Ali was the country’s first ever woman to represent Libya at the Paralympic Games when she contested in the weightlifting sports event. Four years later, Libya competed at the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens, Greece, sending two athletes, a man and a woman. [/restrict]
