Road to Paris 2024/Los Angeles 2028 project – ‘Bring the first Olympic medal home’   Seychelles aims for first Olympic medal   By Marie-Anne Lepathy   |15 November 2021

A souvenir photograph for the occasion (Photo: Joena Meme)

Seychelles has set its sight on winning the country’s first Olympic medal through a new initiative dubbed ‘Road to Paris 2024/Los Angeles 2028 project – Bring the first Olympic medal home’.

The new initiative was officially launched on Friday afternoon by Marie-Celine Zialor, the Minister for Youth, Sports and Family, in a short ceremony hosted by the Kempinski Seychelles Resort at Baie Lazare.

It was attended by former and present Seychellois Olympians, coaches, key sports officials and leaders, the GM of Kempinski Seychelles Resort, Hany Abdelmoneim, among other guests.

The new project will be led by the National Sports Council (NSC) under the aegis of the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Family together with the Seychelles Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (Socga) and the sports fraternity.

In his opening remarks, the president of Socga, Antonio Gopal, described the initiative as historical, noting that while taking part in the Olympic Games is not new to Seychelles, the dream of winning a medal is.

He said more often our target has been to qualify for participation and maybe win a medal but now our goal has changed to definitely winning a medal at the games.

He affirmed that this is now a general commitment of the government and with the right group of potential athletes, the right group of coaches providing them with proper training, the right facilities and equipment, dedication to training and right support from government, the Olympic solidarity and sponsors, this goal is achievable.

“Follow the development of our sports over the years we discovered that our athletes have the capacity to win medals at the Olympic Games. There was a time when winning one more bout in boxing would have been the case. What is good is that we have a good base to start with and this is the knowhow and the spirit,” Mr Gopal remarked.

He further stated that we have the people who know what to do to get there, we have high-level athletes and also experienced coaches.

He stated that one of the purposes of the declaration is to make a commitment to the athletes and aspiring ones that they have the assurance that they can train and prepare themselves for high-level competition without any worry and offering them the right package should be the key to ease their minds from worry so they can concentrate on their goals.

“What will be needed from the athletes and coaches will be commitment,” Mr Gopal stressed. 

He has invited families, schools, community leaders to rally behind their athletes.

Other than funding from the government and the Olympic committee, other partners are being invited to join in efforts and initiatives to support this project.

While the Kempinski Resort has already discussed the support it will offer, Mr Gopal is appealing on individuals and companies to adopt one or more athletes and to be their godparents and support their development.

Mr Gopal has welcomed the new partnership with the government to win an Olympic medal.

Among the former Olympians present at the ceremony was one in particular who had come the closest to clinching an Olympic medal in 1996 and this is no other than Rival Payet, who was willing to share his testimony of that particular unforgettable moment of his life and journey as a boxer.

“To reach the quarterfinal in an Olympic games is not an easy feat but it is also not too difficult if your heart is set in achieving it,” Mr Payet stressed.

Going down memory lane he recalled back in 1984 when the then Olympians Ralph Labrosse and Remmy Zialor were getting ready for the Los Angeles games, as a young boxer he was in a preparatory camp with and watching them getting ready he decided there and then that he too must take part in an Olympic games one day.

“Olympics is one of the largest games in the world which all athletes dream to take part in and from this day I focused on training and more to realise this dream,” Mr Payet recalled.

He told the audience of all his failed attempts to qualify for the games but which did not stop him to continue trying and trying harder for a qualification.

“I am a determined person and when I set my mind to achieve something I will make sure I succeed. I continued to train harder and harder and sure enough during a qualifying game in Morocco I qualified for the Barcelona Olympic games and I was so proud,” Mr Payet recalled.

He went on to detail to the audience his preparation for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games and his preparatory journey to qualify for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.

“The training in the gym is not enough because if you rely only on that to do well at the Olympics, it is not possible. You should work a lot more on your own, concentrating on fitness exercises and athletics. You should be determined, remain set and focus on your goal, put your heart and all your energy in your determination to achieve your goal because believe me it is not an easy feat but of course it is not impossible,” Mr Payet said, thanking again all those who pushed, encouraged and supported him then.

But he said he believes one day Seychelles will see an Olympic medal especially now with the new spirit to take sports to a new level.

For his part when he outlined the new project, the chief executive of the National Sports Council, Jean Larue, said the project ‘Journey to bring home an Olympic medal’ takes a journey and it’s a road.

He said it takes eight to 12 years of dedication and committed training for a talented athlete to reach elite level.

Mr Larue noted that in order to get there we need to invest in targeted and specific groups of athletes as we cannot continue participating with large groups and get nothing.

“We need to push them to get the results and Seychelles must invest in training, competitions, sports programmes we believe are potentially viable to bring medals and of course the required discipline. Funding and support will come in many ways – Socga, NSC, government, private sector companies, businesses, individuals, families…we all need to chip in,” Mr Larue stressed.

He further noted that one of the most important factors of the project is coaching, noting that good coaches will make a big difference for high-level performances.

“We need to work together and collaboratively to unlock future investments while making sure we continue to shape sports development in Seychelles,” said Mr Larue.

When she launched the project, Minister Zialor said Kempinski Seychelles Resort was hosting the ceremony because it was the first to invite returning Seychellois Olympians from the recent Tokyo Olympics for a special lunch and conversation around the initiative for the project which started when she was given the responsibility for the sports portfolio.

She went on to detail the conception of the project ‘bring the medal home’ to the audience.

“Just imagine the impact if a country the size of Seychelles was to win an Olympic medal! You know what message this would bring to our young people, to everybody who thinks small countries can achieve so much? No human is limited,” she said while thinking of all the athletes in the world who have broken some barriers which were believed to be inhumanly impossible to do.

“We can do this, let’s do this, we have to do this if not for us but for our children. We need to come together, be ready to forget our past differences and work together to get the medal and show our children that we can get the medal. We should lead by example, show our maturity, our wisdom and unify to be part of a new journey to bring the medal home. I have no doubt in my mind that we are having this medal, it’s just a matter of when,” Minister Zialor said.