Egyptian swimmer Farida Osman has revealed she will not compete at the Paris Olympics following a mix-up over her eligibility after she missed out on qualifying by 0.02 seconds.
“Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I am sorry to announce that I will not be part of the Egyptian delegation participating in the Paris 2024 Olympics,” said Osman in an Arabic statement posted on her social media.
A three-time Olympian, three-time World Championship bronze medallist, and holder of multiple African records, Osman is the Arab world’s most successful female swimmer and was getting ready to fly to the French capital later this month to participate in her fourth – and likely final – Games.
Osman competed as a 17-year-old in the London 2012 Olympics courtesy of the Universality Program, which allows countries without swimmers who have hit Olympic ‘A’ or ‘B’ standard times to send up to one male and one female swimmer to the Games.
The Egyptian secured outright qualification for Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 by swimming Olympic ‘A’ standard times, but was unable to replicate that feat for Paris, missing the qualifying time for the 50-metre freestyle event by 0.02s.
With an Olympic ‘B’ standard time that positions her as the fastest Egyptian female swimmer, Osman says she had received official confirmation from the Egyptian Olympic Committee, which is run by the head of the Egyptian Swimming Federation, Dr Yasser Idris, that she will be participating in the Paris Games beginning July 26.
She was part of a group of Egyptian athletes that were invited to a special event at the French Embassy in Cairo last month to celebrate their qualification for the Paris Olympics and had been training for the Games with her former college team, the Cal Bears, at Berkeley University since the start of the season.
Except Osman’s qualification was never actually secured and the rules were misinterpreted by Egyptian officials.
In June 2022, World Aquatics announced changes to its universality system, stating that universality athletes can only compete in up to two Olympic Games in their career and must not be older than the age of 30 as of December 31, 2024.
As a three-time Olympian, Osman, 29, is not eligible for a universality place in Paris, a fact that seems to have escaped the relevant governing bodies in Egypt.
Universality athletes take priority over swimmers who have achieved the ‘B’ standard times and Osman didn’t make the cut because all spots in the 50m freestyle had been filled.
Instead, 19-year-old Lojine Abdallah, who recently swept the 200m, 400m, 800m, and 1,500m freestyle events at the African Championships in Angola, has received Egypt’s Universality spot and is Paris-bound.
“I started my training programme from the start of the season so I can reach the best level possible for this competition,” continued Osman in her statement.
“And when I was asked to represent Egypt at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha and the African Games in Ghana, I did not hesitate for a second to take on that honour. And I indeed delivered the medals that were expected of me despite me knowing how these participations would affect the training programme prepared by my technical team to prepare me for the Olympics.
“The time I achieved, despite these difficult circumstances, is 24.72s in the 50m freestyle, which is 0.02s off of the A-cut standard time of 24.70s. And based on that, I was informed by the Egyptian Olympic Committee that I will be participating in the Olympic Games.
“But unfortunately, during the final stages of my preparations, as a result of conflicting interpretations of the Olympic qualification rules, and despite me achieving a time that was incredibly close to the A-cut, as well as my high world ranking, I have been informed that I won’t be participating after all due to the limited quota places in Paris.
“My dream of representing Egypt in my fourth Olympics is over because of 0.02 seconds. I am extremely sad over this difficult situation. Despite the amount of effort I put in and all the sacrifices, this is sport. I apologise to all Egyptian sports fans for not participating in Paris and I thank you for your continued support. Best of luck to all members of the Egyptian delegation.”
Speaking to Mehwar TV on Sunday night, Dr Idris explained the rules and described Osman’s situation as “unlucky”.
“We spoke to World Aquatics about the Universality place and they told us she is not eligible because she competed in three previous Olympic Games,” he explained.
“So we waited for her to take her turn using her B-cut, but she didn’t make it. So World Aquatics informed us, either Egypt will forgo its Universality place, or the next swimmer in line should take the spot, which is Lojine Abdallah, who has indeed taken it. So there are no conflicting rules.
“These are all decisions made by World Aquatics and the International Olympic Committee, these aren’t personal decisions.”
Marwan El Kamash is the only Egyptian swimmer to have achieved ‘A-cut’ qualifying times and will be competing in the 800m and 1,500m events in Paris.
Rocketman
Director: Dexter Fletcher
Starring: Taron Egerton, Richard Madden, Jamie Bell
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
U19 WORLD CUP, WEST INDIES
UAE group fixtures (all in St Kitts)
- Saturday 15 January: UAE beat Canada by 49 runs
- Thursday 20 January: v England
- Saturday 22 January: v Bangladesh
UAE squad:
Alishan Sharafu (captain), Shival Bawa, Jash Giyanani, Sailles
Jaishankar, Nilansh Keswani, Aayan Khan, Punya Mehra, Ali Naseer, Ronak Panoly,
Dhruv Parashar, Vinayak Raghavan, Soorya Sathish, Aryansh Sharma, Adithya
Shetty, Kai Smith
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Starring: George MacKay, Jannis Niewohner, Jeremy Irons
Rating: 3/5
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MATCH INFO
Sheffield United 2 Bournemouth 1
United: Sharp (45 2'), Lundstram (84')
Bournemouth: C Wilson (13')
Man of the Match: Jack O’Connell (Sheffield United)
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Zakat definitions
Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.
Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.
Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.
Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.
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The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
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Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
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Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
More on Quran memorisation:
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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