London 2012 Olympics: Africa's Olympic Queen Kirsty Coventry!

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Alejandro_Guevara_Onofre]Alejandro Guevara Onofre
A Good-Will Ambassador for Zimbabwe
Like Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the warn-torn country of Somalia, the African Republic of Zimbabwe (former Rhodesia until the late 1970s and known as Southern Rhodesia when it was an European depedency) has produced bad (or catastrophic) news in recent decades: poverty, genocide, AIDS, kleptocracy, anti-gay policies, economic chaos, and, of course, the xenophobic dictatorship of Robert Gabriel Mugabe, one of the oldest rulers on the Planet. However, on August 16, 2008, Zimbabwe, a landlocked nation in Southern Africa, had a drop of notoriety when its American-trained swimmer Kirsty Coventry, a while female in a land of black Africans, picked up a gold medal in the 2008 Beijing Games, setting a world record time of 2:05.74 and repeating her feat achieved at the 2004 Athens Summer Games when she set a new African record time of 2:09.19 to win the women's 200m backstroke final. Besides her victory in the 200m back in the Greek meet, the young athlete also won other two medals (silver and bronze), all before she was 21. It was an amazing achievement, putting Zimbabwe on the world Olympic map for the second time in a row.
Along with other international stars like Tunisia's last Olympic champ Oussama Mellouli and the Kenyan-born Jason Edward Dunford,who placed fifth in the men's 100 m butterfly at the 2008 Summer Games and winner of six medals (2 gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze) at the All-Africa Games at Maputo (Mozambique), she belongs to a new generation of African swimmers who have decided to live/train in the US to reverse a number of mediocre results.
In the People's Republic of China (PRC), Miss Coventry amassed a total of four medals (1 gold and 3 silver),becoming the most successful white athlete in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as helping her country to win their eight Olympian medal since 1980 as a national side, made up of white players, won the women's field hockey Olympic tournament at the Moscow Games in the former Soviet Union/USSR (In the Russian meet, Zimbabwe's triumph was considered a "sporting miracle" by many sportswriters and Olympian scholars).
Besides winning numerous medals (from 2002 to 2011: more than 40) and special trophies as one of the most notable female athletes on the African mainland and as one of the greatest Olympic swimmers from the developing world, she set several international records during the first eight years of the 21st century, defeating many sportswomen from Canada, Western Europe, China, Australia, and the States. Historically, the young Coventry is the third sportswoman from Africa to earn a gold in women's swimming at the Summer Games, alongside Joan Harrison (Helsinki' 52) and Penny Heyns (Atlanta'96). She also has the distinction of being the sixth swimmer (male or female) in the Third World to finish first in the Games
She is Zimbabwe's top star for 12 years. The backstroker Coventry made her major international debut during the 2002 Commonwealth Games at Manchester (UK). Her first major success was qualifying for the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney (Australia).
Zimbabwe: An Isolated Nation
After her participation in the People's Republic, she was declared "national heroine" by her fellow Zimbabweans in the nation's capital city of Harare (ex Salisbury), while the President-for-life Robert Mugabe, a member of the tribe Shona (which makes up over 75 percent of the country's population) gave her $100,000, a reward for winning gold. At the time, Mr. Mugabe, the world's most homophobic leader, called her "a golden girl".
Like some warlords and dictators in the Third World, among them Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Cuba's Ra�l Castro, and Kim Jong Il from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea/North Korea, the government of Mugabe supports sport perhaps as a top priority to improve their chaotic image associated with documented human rights violations. For example, against all odds, the 1995 Pan African Games ---an Olympic-type competition for African athletes--- were held in the landlocked country (whose name was taken from the stone ruins in the southern part if the nation) despite many financial troubles due to their international status as one of the world's poorest places and with one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS infection on Earth (according to UN estimates, about one-fourth of the adult population has HIV/AIDS).
Before the end of the white government in the 1970s, Rhodesia not had top athletes unlike from South Africa's apartheid regime (for example Zola Budd, Cliff Drysdale, and the world-class swimmer Jonty Skinner). The sub-Saharan African republic of Zimbabwe, by contrast, has had prominent athletes in many sports as boxing, cricket, diving, field hockey, golf, rugby, tennis, track & field, and triathlon.
This beautiful land, well-known for its waterfalls (Victoria Falls), its abundant wildlife, and for its legendary ruins, is home of Nick Price (one of the world's top golfers) and Paula Newby-Fraser (8-time winner of the Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Hawaii) as well as Byron Black, Ever Stewart, and Mark McNulty. By the early 1990s, the Montana-size land won 24 medals (8 gold, 3 silver, 13 bronze) in the continental games, behind Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria and Kenya.
Zimbabwe, long a self-governing colony of the United Kingdom until the mid-1960s, has some good athletes but without a national sports system as Cuba, North Korea, Turkey, and the Southeast Asian Kingdom of Thailand. Despite having difficult ties to Washington, the dictatorial government of Mugabe, regarded as an international pariah by Western Community (including the American administration), has provided incentives to send Zimbabwe's top athletes to study/train in the United States, allowing they to compete with world champs at North American meets. Under this environment, Miss Coventry received a diplomat passport in 2008.
Prior to competing at Beijing's Water Cube, she earned two silver medals at the FINA World Championships 2007, in the 200m backstroke and individual medley. Since the mid-2000s, she has become a familiar presence for a generation of new African Olympians who are not track and field athletes.
Miss Coventry will compete in the Olympic capital of London in August 2012, trying to give her country a new Olympian medal (its ninth medal). However, her impoverished and isolated country also holds heavy chances to win a medal in track and field: her fellow Zimbabwean Ngonidzashe Makusha, known as the "Carl Lewis from the Developing World", is one of the world's premier long jumpers and with a spectacular mark of 8,40 metres. At London 2012, Mr Makusha, who studies at the Florida State University, could be the first black Zimbabwean to earn an Olympic medal.
Alejandro Guevara Onofre: Freelance writer. Alejandro is author of a host of articles/essays about over 220 countries and dependencies (and American States as well), from ecology, history, tourism and national heroes to Olympic sports, foreign relations, and wildlife. In addition, he has published some books on women's rights, among them "History of the Women of the United States" and "Famous Americans."
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?London-2012-Olympics:-Africas-Olympic-Queen-Kirsty-Coventry!&id=6724904] London 2012 Olympics: Africa's Olympic Queen Kirsty Coventry!