Lebanon’s Country Profile
Official country name: Republic of Lebanon
Area: 4,015 sq miles (10,400 sq km
Population: 3.9 million (2007 est.), not including 400,000 Palestinian refugees
Median age: 28.3
Ethnic Groups: Arab, 95 percent; Armenian, 4 percent; others, 1 percent
GDP and GDP per capita: $20.6 billion and $5,282
Read a complete profile of Lebanon
Lebanon’s Olympic History
First time represented at Summer Olympics: 1948
Gold medals won: 0
Silver: 2
Bronze: 2
Athletes at the Beijing Olympics: 6
Number of Sports competing in at Beijing Olympics: 4
Medals at 2008 Beijing Olympics: 0
Lebanon’s Olympic Playbook
Ravaged by war and political instability for most of the last 30 years, tiny Lebanon has nevertheless managed to attend every summer Olympics but one since 1948. In 1956, Lebanon joined Iraq and Egypt in a boycott of the games in Melbourne, Australia, to protest Israel’s occupation of the Sinai following the 1956 Suez crisis and war.
Through those years Lebanon managed to take home four medals—two silver and two bronze. Khalil Taha and Zakaria Chibab were the country’s first heroes, winning bronze and silver in wrestling at the 1952 Helsinki games. Middleweight weighlifter Mohamed Traboulsi got the silver at the 1972 Munich games, lifting up 472.5kg. And in Moscow in 1980, Hassan Bchara got a bronze in wrestling. (Lebanon would have most likely joined 61 other countries in the boycott of the 1980 games, but Lebanon wasn’t making its own decisions at the time. It was under Syrian occupation, and Syria was a client state of the old Soviet Union).
In Beijing, Lebanon’s hopes rest on the shoulders, legs and eyesights of six athletes, two of them women, including the broad-smiling Gretta Teslakian (whose name echoes Lebanon’s Armenian heritage). Despite injuries in the last few months, and the lack of proper training facilities in Lebanon, she’ll be running the 200m event.
“We feel down because we feel we can do more, but there is a lack of training facilities. Competing in the Olympics is something very big, and to compete in something very big, you need big facilities and resources,” she said. “Of course I’m excited about going there. I want to live the experience of being in China for the Olympics! It's something nice to represent Lebanon and I’m proud of myself.”
Then there’s Wael Kobrosli, who’ll be competing in the 100 meter breast stroke. His training was suspended for two weeks in May while Lebanon went through another one of its periodic brushes with mayhem—that time when Hezbollah, the militant Shiite “Party of God,” decided to assert itself militarily against its own government. Lebanon was in the midst of a constitutional crisis over the election of a new president, since then resolved.
But just as Lebanon’s political crises cost its civilian population dearly in economic and personal terms, it cost Lebanon’s athletes, too. “I could not get into a swimming pool for two weeks, and for a swimmer that is a lifetime,” Kobrolsi said. “But afterwards, I trained twice as hard to make up for it. I’m happy that even though we have less money and smaller training facilities than places like the USA, we are still going out there and competing with the best in the world.”
That’s why, once again, you’ll see Lebanon’s cedar lifted high in the opening ceremonies as its small contingent make its way into Beijing’s Bird’s Nest of a stadium, and, Lebanon hopes, into the hearts of a nation that desperately needs a lift.
Lebanon’s Athletes at the 2008 Beijing Olympics
Judo
Rudi Hashash
Shooting
Ziad Richa
Swimming
Nibal Yamout
Wael Kobrosli
Track & Field/Athletics
Gretta Teslakian
Mohamad Siraj Tamim
