Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Wrong Information must be corrected at all times.

     During these great times in sports achievements for the State of Eritrea we have all been immersed by the excitement that seems to have taken us away by storm. However, It is also important to correct information that is disseminated by the media or even the organizations that are not familiar with ERITREA. It is therefor our duty as the ambassadors of Eritrea to keep an eye and inform those who have made an honest mistake. As it is Eritrea is known to get bad press and sometimes wrong press on purpose because of outside influences which are bent on destroying it's image. Image is everything and when our athletes or other high achievers speak to the media, there needs to be a standard in which we communicate. For Example here is a report from CCTV-Africa which has done a nice story on Eritrea's new Phenom Ghirmay Ghebreslassie who happens to have a last name as the legendary Haile Ghebreslassie of Ethiopia. It is imperative that the association of the two athletes is differentiated by their nationalities. While it has been rumored and may be true that the former coach of Haile is now the coach of the young Ghirmay who handed him the water in his final surge towards the IAAF marathon championship in Beijing 2015, the relationship ends there because Haile is an Ethiopian and Ghirmay is an Eritrean with the same last names. CCTV's reporter claims in the story that Ghirmay is the brother of Haile Ghebreslassie which is wrong information and on the 3:34 mark of the story the Character Generator puts the name of Ghirmay with "Haile" infront of it.
CCTV-Africa hopefully will correct the mistake in their report. Here below is the story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVhQuy7bV6A

Meanwhile in the IAAF Biography page the IAAF has made a mistake in identifying the nationality of ERITREAN yes ERITREAN athlete Nazret Woldu who has represented ERITREA on many occasions as an Ethiopian. This is wrong information and must be corrected. Eri-International sports blog has contacted the IAAF and let them know that they have the wrong information on Nazret Woldu and this is the response we got.

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I quickly remove nothing.
When I will receive a copy of his passport saying
He is Eritrean I will take action, after the Championships.
In any case, be informed that I don’t dream the nationality
of an athlete, it means that I took it from the results of some race.

cid:image001.gif@01CA2596.74EB9A00 

Ottavio Castellini
IAAF Statistics & Documentation Senior Manager




We responded back by writing, the following e-mail;

Sir,

     A very good morning to you sir.Nazret is a female first of all and she is an Eritrean. Unless you have another name by the name of Nazret Woldu, I can assure you that she is an Eritrean and will be participating for ERITREA this week in the IAAF world championship. However I am concerned because if she wins and you put out her bio as an Ethiopian you will be held accountable for wrong information and believe me ERITREANS all over the world will let you hear it. I have contacted Nazret and I hope the Eritrean Athletics Federation will contact you ASAP.

Thank you.
Respectfully yours.

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Hopefully the wrong information will be removed from the IAAF website indicating that Nazret Woldu is an ERITREAN and not an Ethiopian. Here is the link to the website with the wrong information.

http://www.iaaf.org/athletes/ethiopia/nazret-woldu-243116

It makes a huge difference as the flag which Ghirmay Ghebreslassie waved in his world championship performance came at a very high cost to the people of ERITREA! I also encourage all Eritreans to write to the IAAF's statistics and documentation manager at the following e-mail and let him know that Nazret Woldu is indeed an ERITREAN and not Ethiopian. His e-mail address is as follows; 

ottavio.castellini@iaaf.org

Eri-International sports 

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Three Eritrean superstars shine while the Red Sea boys make a come back.

In three large cities 2 in Europe and one in Australia Eritrean soccer players seem to be shining like the bisha gold coming in large quantities these days. Let us start of with veteran Henok Goitom who is having an outstanding season in the Swedish Premier league with AIK Stockholm. He leads the league in scoring along with another player with 13 goals so far as he has been scoring goal after goal in the past few weeks. Henok like wine seems to be getting better with age as he is even now being touted to represent the Swedish National Team which is gearing up for the European cup taking place in 2016. Henok has electrified the fans and has AIK competing at the highest level.

Meanwhile a new comer to the German Bundesliga with Entracht Frankfurt one of the more popular teams in the 5th biggest city in Germany Joel Gerezgiher seems to be comfortable with his play in the pre-season so far scoring a couple of times while also contributing to his team's success. Let us look for this young man as he makes his debut with Frankfurt's A team this season. He has lots of potential and can be another international Eritrean star in the very near future.

In the land down under Gol Gol Mebrhatu is back from a major injury and has made his home in Sydney the largest city in Australia. Gol Gol is playing with the Western Sydney Wanderers and already has registered a goal in his debut with his new team. Gol Gol seems to be 100% ready to start shining in the league down under. If he does not get injured chances are he will be a great player with potential to score lots of goals. See link below.

http://www.theffacup.com.au/video/popovic-delighted-with-ffa-cup-win/1307692

In Eritrea the national team otherwise known as the Red Sea Boys will be getting ready to face Botswana from the southern Africa region in a home and away match for qualification to the 2018 world cup that will take place in Russia. While the Eritrean premier league has been reformed this time we hope to see players will be chosen from different regions of the country where there is way too much talent. In a recent Jeopardy answer the "RED SEA" boys were featured as an answer from Alex Trebek and the contestant answered the question by saying "Who are the Eritreans?" Games are scheduled for early October startin on the 5th and second game on the 13th. This would be the first round.

With Eritrean cyclists showing the world that Eritrea deserves to be on top during the Tour De France, it is also time for the world cup of cycling taking place in Richmond Virginia as the UCI will hold it's biggest international event starting on September 17th, 2015.

For Eri-International Sports blog.

Mike Seium