#Algeria national team

[fitfootballers]

Houssem Aouar 🔥

[goalhofer]

2024 olympics Algeria roster

Athletics

Djamel Sedjati (Tiaret)

Slimane Moula (Draa Ben Khedda)

Mohamed Gouaned (Biskra)

Almine Bouanani (Algiers)

Bilal Tabti (Jijel)

Yasser Triki (Constantine)

Oussama Khennoussi (Chlef)

Zahra Tatar (Algiers)

Badminton

Koceila Mammeri (Lyon, France)

Tanina Mammeri (Lyon, France)

Boxing

Jugurtha Bekka (Oran)

Mourad Kadi (Tizi Ouzou)

Hadjila Khelif (Bejaia)

Roumaysa Boualam (Blida)

Imane Khelif (Tiaret)

Canoeing

Carole Bouzidi (Paris, France)

Cycling

Yacine Hamza (Algiers)

Nesrine Houili (Oued Tlelat)

Fencing

Salim Heroui (Algiers)

Zohra Kehli (Bagnolet, France)

Abik Boungab (Algiers)

Saoussen Boudiaf (Roubaix, France)

Kaouther Mohamed-Belkebir (Algiers)

Gymnastics

Kaylia Nemour (Saint-Benoît-La-Forêt, France)

Judo

Mohamed Lili (Algiers)

Messaoud Dris (Paris, France)

Amina Belkadi (Tlemcen)

Rowing

Sid Boudina (Algiers)

Nihed Benchadli (Algiers)

Sailing

Rami Boudrouma (Skikda)

Shooting

Kocelia Adoul (Algiers)

Samir Bouchireb (Algiers)

Houda Chaabi (Constantine)

Swimming

Jaouad Syoud (Constantine)

Nesrine Medjahed (Mostaganem)

Table tennis

Mehdi Bouloussa (Saint-Denis, France)

Lynda Loghraibi (Algiers)

Weightlifting

Walid Bidani (Maghnia)

Wrestling

Ishak Ghaiou (Algiers)

Fadi Rouabah (Algiers)

Fateh Benferdjallah (Algiers)

Abdelkarim Fergat (Algiers)

Abdelkarim Ouakali (Algiers)

Bachir Azara (Algiers)

Ibtissem Doudou (Algiers)

Chaimaa Aouissi (Algiers)

[maddy-ferguson]

i love that the last people heard the leftist coalition won the french legislative elections so they think we have a leftist government now lol

[reasonsforhope]

"Fencing offers a ray of hope to young people living in Nairobi's poorest neighbourhoods.

Despite a lack of equipment, the sword fighting sport is growing in popularity in Kenya.

They cut a striking group as they wander through Huruma in their pristine white outfits.

These young people are heading for their favourite hang-out spot: the Tsavora Fencing club at the local community centre.

The street becomes their arena as they parry and riposte in front of passers-by.

This is not just a hobby for them: it's a force for good in their lives.

Fencing has helped carve a path away from crime, drugs and other social pressures.

"I used to be a gangster," says Mburu Wanyoike, who is now a coach for Kenya's National Fencing team.

"I was in crime and crime makes you feel isolated. It actually puts you in a place where you are isolated, making you feel depressed, having stress and I chose fencing as a way for me to escape out of the hood and escape that lifestyle."

His journey from delinquency to fencing coach and senior athlete in Kenya's national team has been transformative.

Inspired by the personal tragedy of the death of two friends, Wanyoike pursued training and education in South Africa, ultimately founding Tsavora Fencing in 2021.

Tsavora Fencing has made significant strides.

The team has produced 15 talented fencers who have earned spots in the national squad, with plans to represent Kenya in the African Olympic Qualifiers in Algeria this year.

However, challenges persist, particularly regarding the affordability of fencing equipment.

"Sometimes it is tough when it comes to competing with well-equipped international countries that are well organized, so what we do is just to move on with enthusiasm and obsession. The fact that we don't have the equipment, the limited ones we have, we use them. We don't complain that we do not have equipment, we just use what we got and put in the obsession and the enthusiasm and the passion combined, that's what we do, we fence," says Wanyoike.

Tsavora Fencing Mtaani, an initiative under Tsavora Fencing, offers mentorship and training in fencing to the youth of these impoverished neighbourhoods, shielding them from the dangers of their environment.

With 45 members, most of whom are students, the team serves as a beacon of hope in the community.

Participants are required to become disciplined and put on integrity.

"Initially I had bad company at home but now that I am in fencing, it has kept me busy and now it is a better option for me because I feel happy doing it," says Jemimah Njeri, a 17-year-old member of Tsavora Fencing.

"I cannot imagine myself without this sport because it has kept me very busy. In my area many girls have become teenage mothers and that is not a wonderful life," adds 16-year-old Allen Grace...

As Tsavora Fencing continues to thrive, fuelled by the determination of its members and the support of the community, it stands as a testament to the transformative power of sport in, even the most challenging environments."

-via Africanews, April 1, 2024

[jesawyer]

A big thanks to you and your team for making Pentiment, it's an amazing game and it'll be with me for a long time I think, especially the personal and emotional character writing.

I'm curious about what was the inspiration behind, and creative motivation for including, the motif of the labyrinth. The church's painting of the Virgin Mary with the labyrinth seems striking in particular, especially because I don't remember ever coming across a strong association with labyrinths in Christian imagery.

Thank you. I'm glad it was so impactful.

Labyrinths have a long association with Christianity going back to the 4th century, when one was placed in a cathedral in Chlef (now in Algeria). This is known as the St. Reparata or St. Reparatus Labyrinth.

The Chartres Labyrinth was built around 1200.

Christian labyrinths are meant to be walked while contemplating. The path twists and turns, but there is only one way to go. They also all clearly take inspiration from labyrinths of the classical world even if their purpose and origins are effectively lost to those who see them.

As Beatrice says to Andreas (paraphrased), the foundations of our memories become buried and invisible. And she is paraphrasing and abbreviating Plato speaking to Solon in Timaeus,

whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed-if there were any actions noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples. Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves. As for those genealogies of yours which you just now recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales of children. In the first place you remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones;

I also wanted the association with the labyrinth from The Name of the Rose, which in turn was inspired by the Reims Labyrinth.

The Reims Labyrinth was constructed in the late 13th century but was destroyed in the 18th century by superstitious priests. It was through the discovery of drawings that modern scholars were able to recreate and project the path of the labyrinth onto the cathedral floor.

The cover of the 1st Italian edition (and therefore, first edition overall) of Il Nome della Rosa prominently incorporated the drawing of the Reims Labyrinth.

Note the map of the Aedificium:

The final lines of The Name of the Rose are:

Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.

The original rose remains only in name, we hold those names stripped.

This refers to a specific object in the story, but more broadly symbolizes historical records, art objects, and other artifacts lost to time. The Reims Labyrinth remains only in drawings, stories, and light projected on the ground where it once stood; the labyrinth itself was destroyed.

Nomen est; res non est. - The name exists; the thing does not.

As a side note, France uses the Reims Labyrinth as its symbol for historical monuments - an important reminder of how fragile their existence can be.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

The biggest news in my country today, is that Israel has agreed to appear before the International Court of Justice, despite not recognizing the ICJ or its authority.

Why would Israel not recognize it?

The ICJ is the judicial arm of the United Nations. This international body has a KNOWN (and even academically researched) bias against Israel. Which in a sense, is almost unavoidable. The UN as an idea has international representation, with equality for all. No sanctions or a lesser status for non-democratic countries, no sanctions or a lesser status for abusers of human rights, and no sanctions or a lesser status for countries biased against Israel or against Jews (and therefore against Israel, as a Jewish state). Generally speaking, the ADL estimates that about 26% of the global adult population holds antisemitic views. That means that if the UN correctly represents the global population, about 1 in every 4 of its members, is antisemitic. That's before we talk about blocks coming into play (think of the anti-Israel Arab block alone, with its oil and influence. An Israeli diplomat once said, that if Algeria introduced a resolution that the world was flat, and Israel had flattened it, this resolution would pass automatically), or about countries or heads of state, that hold institutional antisemitic positions, such as Iran (where the Islamist regime denies the Holocaust, and has openly been threatening Israel with destruction for years, meaning they are explicitly stating they are looking to kill the biggest Jewish community in the world. Oh, and Iran is currently chairing the UN human rights council).

To appear before the court, is to legitimize it. But there's a catch 22 here. If Israel is being accused at the ICJ of committing war crimes, or even a genocide (which should be harder to prove, because it involves proving intent), and Israel knows it isn't, but it won't appear before the court (to not legitimize it), yet other countries do recognize the ICJ, and no one will defend Israel there if it doesn't appear before the court itself, then how can its innocence of the charges be proven? By not appearing, Israel's conviction is almost a given, regardless of what it actually does.

Yet appearing before the court, and being innocent of the charges, doesn't guarantee an acquittal, when the ICJ is biased. What is worse, a conviction when Israel is absent, where it's clear the trial wasn't fair (since the accused didn't get to defend themselves before the court), or a conviction despite Israel's appearance and innocence, where the trial still isn't fair, but it might not be as immediately evident, since Israel did participate in the trial?

For now, it seems Israel chose to hope the ICJ is not so biased, and decided to appear before it. Let us hope that's not a mistake.

But I can testify from my own experience as a soldier, that we were very much taught to pursue minimal harm to the enemy as an ideal, as a part of the IDF's code of ethics, one of the first things you learn as an Israeli soldier. We were taught that if an order we were given strikes us as immoral (because it carries harm to someone), it is our moral duty to refuse to follow it. I've also heard an interview, with an Israeli fighter pilot, who said he feels calm, knowing every target that he's sent to strike, has been checked by a legal team, that a strike against it does not constitute a war crime. I've also seen strikes being canceled when an Israeli soldier recognized civilians near the target. I'll also say I have heard foreign military seniors say that the IDF fights with a moral standard that they've never seen from any other army. I don't think that's something that any soldier would easily say, since it indirectly criticizes their own army.

So I am as confident as I can be, without serving myself during this war, that if Israel got a fair trial, no court would convict it. Now the only question is whether we would get one. I guess time will tell.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[kcyars99]

This is Imane Khelif. She is a boxer from Algeria. 🇩🇿

You're probably going to be hearing a lot about her from your bigoted uncle this weekend, especially now that everyone's least-favorite bigoted aunt, J.K. Rowling, has offered her incredibly worthless opinion on today's fight between two cis (aka BiOLoGiCaL for y'all that need that) women.

Things worth noting: 🇮🇹 The boxer who quit today's fight--Angela Carini of Italy--said her quitting wasn't political and that she was not passing judgment on Khelif's eligibility. She said the shot to her nose did something different to her than most hits she's ever taken.

🇹🇼 Last year, Imane (along with Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting) faced a ruling by the International Boxing Association that they--despite being cis or 'BioLoGiCaL🥴' women--had "advantages" of a genetic nature, leading to a decision not to let them fight.

🇺🇸 U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps, celebrated as the greatest swimmer of all time, has a genetic condition where his body produces half of the lactic acid of a normal cis man. For this biological quirk (along with his hyper-mobility) he is lauded.

🇩🇿 Algerian sports officials and other Algerian athletes have spoken in Imane's defense, including national team soccer player ​​Ismaël Bennacer who said Khelif is "suffering a wave of unjustified hatred."

🥇 The Olympics do not recognize IBA or its rulings and carried out their own set of testing standards which every athlete you see competing had to pass.

🇯🇵 Imane also fought at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, where she was beaten in the quarterfinals by Irish boxer Kellie Harrington--another 'BioLoGiCaL🥴' woman.

🥊 For the weirdos who obsess over genitals, this person was born with a vagina. Meaning that by y'all's weird rules where you want to check in kids' pants before they compete, Imane would be deemed "girl athlete."

🏊 Meanwhile, Katie Ledecky today became the most decorated women's swimmer ever by pulling in a silver medal, after yesterday continuing her long streak of dominating everyone in the world in the 1500, where she holds the top TWENTY best times. Ever. And people on the internet spent the day calling her a man.

🧨 This should be a nonissue, but JOANNE and Elon and your bigoted uncle are latching onto it because they want to continue to push the deadly narrative against trans folks via any possible means. Even in a case where the person they're demonizing isn't trans in the first damn place. If she as a cis woman has more testosterone than other cis women athletes, well, that's not all that uncommon. Y'all wanna tell women with PCOS that they're not really women?

🩺 I don't know how many times I've shared that Open Ocean Exploration thread, by a literal biologist, explaining how common it is that people have sex variations that they don't even know about. I'll share it again since it's just about the most concise look at X/Y diversity I've ever seen. It's really wild to watch folks who copied off of my in high school biology act like they know more than actual scientists and doctors every single time I post it. --Find that post here:

#ParisOlympics2024

#OlympiansMadeHere

#olympicsboxing

(This originally called Joanne a bigoted uncle while still using her correct pronouns which I think conveys that she's basically the living embodiment of everyone's metaphorical racist uncle, gender be damned, but a few people felt it was misgendering her which was very much not the point so I changed it just to stop infighting since there's already plenty enough fighting with actual bigots to be doing.)

[justinssportscorner]

Matt Gertz at MMFA:

American women covered their country in Olympic glory in Paris on Thursday. Katie Ledecky broke the record for most swimming medals won by a woman when the U.S. team captured silver in the 4x200-meter freestyle, while Simone Biles won gold in her second women’s gymnastics all-around Olympics event and her teammate Suni Lee took the bronze.  But on this side of the Atlantic, the American right was apparently more interested in bemoaning the purported death of women’s sports than cheering on their compatriots. The leading lights of the right-wing media spent Thursday melting down over an Olympics welterweight boxing match between two women from Algeria and Italy as they sought to drum up a ragefest they could use to firm up Donald Trump’s wavering election prospects against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Imane Khelif of Algeria won her Olympics boxing match against Italy’s Angela Carini when Carini forfeited after taking several blows to the face in the fight’s opening seconds (in boxing, for those unfamiliar with the sport, competitors try to hit each other in the head as hard as they can and can win by rendering their opponent unconscious). The U.S. right quickly seized on the match and plugged it into their obsessive anti-trans hysteria, falsely declaring Khelif a man who had beaten up a woman. 

If you want to know more about Khelif — a veteran of international women’s boxing competition who was eliminated in the quarterfinal round of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and whose passport, from a country where you cannot legally change your gender, identifies her as female — read Paolo Armelli’s story on the controversy for Wired. If you are interested in the history of sports competitions grappling with complex questions about the gender and sex of athletes, my former colleague Parker Molloy wrote nuanced pieces on the subject for Vice News, CJR, and at her Substack. 

What was quite clear on Thursday, however, is that the weirdo right, obsessed with conducting bizarre “transvestigations,” doesn’t care about any of this. They simply want to misgender Khelif, invoke the rage associated with domestic violence by claiming she is a man punching a woman, and channel the resulting outrage and anti-trans hate into their own political gain.

A MAGA media frenzy quickly ensued on X after the match, with Riley Gaines, the right-wing activist who built her career complaining about trans women competing in sports, at the heart of the outburst.  [...]

This sustained freakout is a perfect example of how the right-wing media has become pickled in its own outrage. They simply cannot let themselves — or anyone else — enjoy good things that normal Americans enjoy, like the dominance of U.S. women at the Olympics. Instead, they build their audiences and make their money by constantly trying to find something they can get mad about. Being a right-winger in good standing in recent years has required working oneself into a culture war frenzy over the NFL, Budweiser beer, Disney movies, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift, among other all-American icons.  [...]

“This is where Kamala Harris's ideas about gender lead: to a grown man pummeling a woman in a boxing match,” vice presidential nominee JD Vance posted to X on Thursday. “This is disgusting, and all of our leaders should condemn it.” His running mate — who a jury found liable for sexual abuse, and who was introduced at the Republican National Convention last month by a man who had been captured on video hitting his wife in the face — chimed in. “I WILL KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS!” Trump posted to Truth Social.

Other Republican politicians, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott; Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Anthony D’Esposito of New York, Greg Steube of Florida, and Mike Collins of Georgia; North Carolina gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson and Senate nominees Hung Cao of Virginia and Kari Lake of Arizona also contributed to the sick debate.  Normal people are too busy cheering for American champions like Ledecky and Biles to spend their time doing chalkboard scrawls explaining how Kamala Harris should be blamed for who Algeria sends to the Olympics. But with Trump’s polling lead slipping away and his campaign apparently trying to reignite by focusing on what appeals to the party’s weirdo wing, we can expect much more of this in the months to come.

The right-wing Weirdo Caucus were big mad over two cisgender women boxers to push an anti-trans narrative, and as usual, the likes of anti-trans extremists such as J.K. Rowling, Riley Gaines, Charlie Kirk, and Clay Travis led the charge of faux outrage against Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting’s participation in women’s boxing under the guise of “defending women’s sports.”

See Also:

Awful Announcing: Predictably, the Olympics are bringing out the worst in us

The Advocate: Attacks on Imane Khelif prove what we've long known: Transphobia hurts cis women, too

Out: The transphobia Imane Khelif is experiencing isn't new—it's part of a disturbing, hateful pattern

[girlactionfigure]

🔘 Wed morning  - ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

( 1 of 2 )

🟨 Many people immediately asked for evidence the Rafah attack reports were false, which the IDF provided definitively around 12 hours later.  And people asked: how did we know basically immediately?

- - if Hamas is publicizing it, it’s a lie.  They literally have created an industry with cameramen, lighting, professional horror makeup people, etc.  Yesterday’s CNN headline picture was obviously posed, with makeup on the mourning people.

- - when the figures change every hour or every report, it’s a lie.  You can tell their PR people are throwing out numbers until they see what gets accepted.

- - when the details don’t make sense, it’s likely a lie.

BUT, the reporters and then the public absorbs THE FIRST INFO - no matter how ridiculous.  We applaud those fighting the good fight with information, it’s always too late.  As from the next item below, we have world policy being made on the basis of the lie.  

One response I have heard is to immediately emphasize and reflect, which might force people to think a bit, like this: “I heard the Israelis bombed 50 innocent people!”… “Really?  I heard they bombed 5 million innocent children holding build-a-bears! And I saw a picture!  Nice bears though. And beautiful outfits on the children, wonder where you can buy them?”  

.. And they try again: Arab channels are reporting about 21 dead in an attack by an Israeli warplane on the tent area in Mawasi of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.  No documentation, no pictures, but watch for the Al Jazeera and CNN headlines.  IDF: no such attack.

Regarding the original, here’s it all in a nice video: https://x.com/AbuAliEnglishB1/status/1795504079491272925?t=BI4qgX821mbOTPwS2JaNOw&s=19

▪️ALGERIA AND SOUTH AFRICA TO REQUEST UN SEC COUNCIL RESOLUTION RE: RAFAH.  

▪️CROSS GREEN LINE SHOOTING - TULKARM to BAT HEFER.. masked terrorists identified with Hamas were seen shooting at Bat Hefer from the Tulkarm border wall, and yesterday there was an infiltration team that cross the wall and was captured. Also noting that Route 6 follows directly along part of the wall, putting both the towns and the major Israel traffic route at risk. (N12)

"Vengeance and Liberation Youth" Battalion take responsibility for shooting at Bat Hefer.

▪️PM ORDERS HALT ON “SETTLEMENT” HOUSE DESTRUCTION, DEFENSE DEPT DOES IT ANYWAY.. Despite Prime Minister Netanyahu's order not to destroy houses belonging to reservists during wartime - security forces destroyed this morning near the settlement of Adam a house of a soldier who is in the reserves. The Prime Minister's Office stated that his directive is still in effect. 

▪️CHINA REQUESTS HOUTHIS STOP SHIP ATTACKS, HOUTHIS SAY NO.. there was a meeting of the Chinese Foreign Minister in Yemen with senior officials in Yemen to stop the Houthi attacks in the Red and Arabian seas.  The answer: no.

🔘 Wed morning  - ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

( 2 of 2 )

▪️3 HERO SOLDIERS HAVE FALLEN.. (not from our regular source, so I’m less sure of this)  Paratroopers Brigade 50, Amir Glilov, Uri Bar Or, Udi Ofer.  (No ages or locations in the notice).  May their families be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, and may G-d avenge their blood.

▪️ECONOMY - INTEREST RATES.. Bank of Israel leaves the interest rate unchanged at 4.5%; The prime interest rate - 6%.  The dollar-shekel rate stays steady on the news at $1 = NIS 3.69

▪️SCAM / HACK WARNING.. People are receiving an incoming call from a confidential number, the speaker identifies as a representative of the police cyber team OR the national HQ for the protection of children OR the police info center, and requests that they provide a code received in an SMS message.

The code they ask for is the WhatsApp activation code, and will allow the hacker to take control of your WhatsApp.

NOBODY official will call you and ask for any SMS codes, EVER.  It’s a scam!

Hack attempts can be reported to the cyber center -> dial 119.

The cyber center recommends turning on 2 step verification for WhatsApp: Settings>Account>Two-step verification.

♦️Gaza: Air force attacks east of Khan Yunis and Sheikh Radwan.

♦️Gaza: Airstrikes in Nusirat, central and western Rafah.

♦️Gaza: Artillery in various areas in Rafah, north of Nusirat, east of Al-Maazi and Al-Boreij, east of Sajaiya, Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya.

♦️COUNTER-TERROR operations overnight in Shevika (near Tulkarm) and Tubas and Shoafat.  Plenty of gunfire, explosives thrown at security vehicles.

⭕ HOUTHIS shot 5 missiles at a Greek ship yesterday. HIT with 3 !

⭕ HEZBOLLAH ROCKETS at Shtula, 2 rounds.

[beardedmrbean]

Natural chimerism

Natural chimerism has been documented in humans in several instances.

The Dutch sprinter Foekje Dillema was expelled from the 1950 national team after she refused a mandatory sex test in July 1950; later investigations revealed a Y-chromosome in her body cells, and the analysis showed that she was probably a 46,XX/46,XY mosaic female.

In 1953, a human chimera was reported in the British Medical Journal. A woman was found to have blood containing two different blood types. Apparently this resulted from her twin brother's cells living in her body. A 1996 study found that such blood group chimerism is not rare.

In 2002, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine described a woman, later identified as Karen Keegan, in whom tetragametic chimerism was unexpectedly identified after she underwent preparations for kidney transplant. Those preparations for the transplant required the patient and her immediate family to undergo histocompatibility testing, the result of which had suggested that she was not the biological mother of two of her three children.

In 2002, Lydia Fairchild was denied public assistance in Washington state when DNA evidence appeared to show that she was not the mother of her children. A lawyer for the prosecution heard of the case of Karen Keegan in New England, and suggested the possibility to the defense, who were able to show that Fairchild, too, was a chimera with two sets of DNA, and that one of those sets could have been the mother of the children.

What man are you talking about?

Also motorsport requires a motor not magic, lots of injuries happen Harry even had his arm broken having magic to fix it doesn't take away the fact that it happened, that and lockhart being a ponce and making it worse, if you don't think it takes physical strength to ride a broom and toss around a ball you should talk to people that play Polo on horseback.

And finally, the tweet was there to make people laugh, but apparently your sense of humor is about as real as magic is.

If she'd been a man that had surgery she wouldn't be representing algeria, because they would have killed her instead, changing genders is illegal there as is surgery to do that, not going to make the olympic boxing squad.

[sissa-arrows]

[image description: Everything is written and drawn in red ink on a yellowed paper. The poster says “Against duplicity: The OAS” underneath you see a soldier with a helmet saying “OAS” pointing his gun at a wolf wearing sheep skin. The wolf has “FLN” written on his flank. On the sheep skin’s flank there’s “Cease-fire” written.]

A French Algerian shared this picture saying “Does this remind you anything?” And now French white supremacists are saying the OAS were heroes like the IOF and that the Palestinian resistance are terrorists just like the Algerian resistance was.

For those who don’t know the OAS was an actual terrorist organization. A bunch of white supremacists who actually attempted a COUP against France because they considered that France wasn’t violent enough against Algerians. They killed many Algerians but honestly it’s nothing that rest of the French didn’t do. The OAS also killed many white people including settlers and blamed Algerians for it. The OAS placed bomb not just in Algeria but in France too. One of the founders of the OAS actually bombed the dentist office of his own brother in France because said brother was a leftist who thought that keeping Algeria wasn’t worth it if it meant killing so many Algerians. It’s worth it to say that while all settlers were not members of the OAS, while all settlers did not approve everything the OAS did at the end of the day the majority of the settlers supported the OAS as they saw them as the only way to keep Algeria under colonial rule.

Later because France is a racist country who didn’t want to be held accountable every single member of the OAS was fully pardoned (just like all the French people who tortured, killed and raped Algerians). So a couple decades later the members of the OAS teamed up with French SS (this is not a metaphor they teamed up with people who were actual Nazi during WW2) to create the Front National. France’s far right party who is gaining more and more space and will most likely win the next election.

So they are saying the OAS and the IOF are one and the same. Thank you for confirming what we’ve all been saying about the IOF being a bunch of terrorists, Israeli supremacists with genocidal intent.

[freifraufischer]

So you've come back to gymnastics since Tokyo because you are excited and French Gymnasitcs is on Fire and Everything is Terrible....

[This original post was written for Reddit to help catch people up on what was happening while they weren't paying attention]

Welcome to an overview of "Everything is not okay in France". Before I get into the details of what is happening in the French Gymnastics Federation (FFG) you should be aware that they are hardly the only French sports establishment gleefully lighting themselves on fire. In mid June the headquarters of the Paris organizing committee was raided by French Police as part of corruption investigations, the head of the French Olympic Committee has resigned after her predecessor announced he was filing a complaint about mismanagement of funds, the French National Assembly has started a commission to investigate abuse and corruption in French sports broadly ... oh and they still haven't signed the contracts for all the Paris Olympic venues including the Stade de France. If you want the lowlights of French Sports scandals this year @darthmelyanna posted a summary.

Specifically the FFG ... before Tokyo it was decided that to give the French team the best training environment all Paris hopefuls would need to move from their home gyms to centralized locations at Pôle Gym St-Etienne (in south central France) or INSEP in Paris. This is not the first time there has been a push to centralize French gymnastics and the last time it didn't go well either. There was a massive sexual abuse case at INSEP which was dropped because of the age of the suspect... so you know it's totally reasonable to trust the environment there.

Anyway... many of the most promising French gymnasts come from a club called Avoine Beaumont Gymnastique and their gymnasts did not want to move (either away from their family or their coaches with whom they saw success). According to the coaches at Avoine-Beaumont the centralization push is about the ambitions of national team staff wanting to take credit for successes at the home Olympics and there is a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest this true. The Avoine-Beaumont coach had been offered a job at INSEP and was previously on the national team staff but when he did not take the job he was forbidden to travel with his gymnasts.

According to Carolann Héduit (a French national champion and a European medalist) the FFG called her weekly to pressure her to move--including while she was in Tokyo at the Olympics--and have told her that her national championships mean nothing and they even pulled her funding only restoring it after there was national press attention. She has described the psychological impact as heavy and her parents and coaches believe the French federation are attempting to break her.

Her team mate Kaylia Nemour was probably the most promising French junior of her generation. She also refused to move and after a surgery when her own doctor approved her return to training the French federation's doctor--without examining her--not only refused to allow her to return to competition, but also said that she could not return to training and initiated an abuse investigation into her coaches. He had the authority to refuse to allow her to compete, he did not have the authority to tell her she could not train. He tried to publicly say he never did that but Nemour's mother had the letter in writing and posted it on twitter. Facing the prospect of not being able to compete Nemour switched to Algeria but the FFG opposed the country change meaning she couldn't compete for a year. That would have prevented her from competing at this year's world championship and most of her best opportunities to qualify for Paris. This was only reversed at the intervention of the French Minister for Sport the literal week before the 2023 African Championships where she qualified for Worlds. She has a VERY good chance of winning a medal on bars in Paris. Yet another Avoine-Beaumont junior's family is voicing that they may also be looking at a country change...

All while this is going on Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos was given leave to train in the United States at WCC. No one is clear why she was given this exception. Some fans have speculated that it is because she is from Martinique which is in the Caribbean and she wants to be closer to her family... but it is neither cheaper nor faster to travel from Houston to Martinique then from Paris to Martinique. MDJDS has talked about how it takes basically 24 hours for her to travel from Martinique to basically anywhere and because Martinique is a French department there are direct flights from Paris and no such thing from Houston. As of this post it would cost between $690-730 to fly from Paris to Martinique and almost $1200 to fly from Houston to Martinique. MDJDS is also not been treated super well when she has gone home to compete. Her WCC coaches were not allowed to stay with her in the week before the Paris World Challenge Cup and when she showed up the French National Team staff decided they didn't like her technique on one of her releases and decided to retrain it. A week before competition. It did not go well. She had a generally good 2023 French Championship but the difference between her being allowed to train in the states while the Avoine-Beaumont gymnasts are being put through hell to force them to leave home is... a choice. And not one I think anyone can explain.

While this was going on the Pôle Marseille was closed down after it's head was convicted of "moral harassment." One of the longest running French gymnastics meets Gym Massilia was abruptly cancelled last year and though it was said it would be back this spring... it's July and that hasn't happened.

All of this has been about WAG but it's also worth mentioning that the French federation hired Vitaly Marinitch to be the head coach of the French team. He had been publicly fired from USAG for drunkenly groping the wife of an athlete. In under 2 years the French also fired him for "alcohol related incidents".

A lot of this came to a head last month when a French sports television program aired a segment including many former French national team members describing physical and verbal abuse. It's... a hard listen if you can find a copy though the versions on youtube have been copywrite striked so I can't link it. The French Minister of Sport acted the next day ordering Nemour to be released to compete for Algeria and investigations into the coaches described in the report, as well as a "speedy conclusion" to the investigation into Avoine-Beaumont. The FFG has down played and been dismissive of the entire thing. Even claiming that the TV team did their investigation... because of Larry Nassar. But hey... the French gym fed president gets to spend a lot of time now answering questions before the National Assembly's investigative commission.

That's pretty much the state of everything right now... but please indulge me as I give a brief explainer about how France does not work the way you think it might. France is divided into administrative units called departments (think provinces or states). There are two "kinds" of departments those of Metropolitan France (the area you probably think of when you think of a map of France) and the départements et régions d'outre-mer or Overseas Departments. There is NO difference under French law between the two. Marine Boyer is from the French department of Réunion which is in the Indian ocean and MDJDS is from the French department of Martinique in the Caribbean. They are both full French citizens and their home departments have representation in the European Parliament. Does this sound very Colonialism-y or Empire-y to you? Of course it does. You wouldn't be wrong. But this does not change the reality of how French citizens are treated under the law. French political society highly values the idea that all French citizens are equal under the law and it would be deeply offensive to that power structure to suggest that a French citizen should be treated differently based on if they came from a Metropolitan Department or DROM.

One other side note: Many believe Avoine-Beaumont pushes too much difficulty too young. I am among the people who believes that. But there is also no evidence that they are doing anything different than would be done at INSEP. It's completely possible to side eye the pacing at Avoine-Beaumont and also think that they are the victims of a power grab. While I do not know of any complaints by current gymnasts against Avoine-Beaumont there is some evidence from the London quad of restrictive diets and abuse.

[goalhofer]

2024 olympians representing non country of residence part 1

USA: Jaime Czarkowski, swimming (Calgary, Alberta); Catalina Gnoriega, archery (Mexicali, Mexico); Colin Heathcock, fencing (Beijing, China) & Jennifer Mucino-Fernandez (Ciudad Mexico, Mexico) Afghanistan: Kamia Yousufi, athletics (Mashhad, Iran) Albania: Chermen Valiev, wrestling (Moscow, Russia) Algeria: Saoussen Boudiaf, fencing (Roubaix, France); Mehdi Bouloussa, table tennis (Saint-Denis, France); Carole Bouzidi, canoeing (Paris, France); Messaoud Dris, judo (Paris, France); Zohra Kehli, fencing (Bagnolet, France); Koceila Mammeri, badminton (Lyon, France); Tanina Mammeri, badminton (Lyon, France) & Kaylia Nemour (Saint-Benoît-La-Forêt, France) Antigua & Barbuda: Ellie Shaw, swimming (Fairfax County, Virginia) & Tiger Tyson, sailing (Auckland, New Zealand) Argentina: Pascual Di Tella, fencing (Brooklyn, New York); Emiliano Grillo, golf (San Diego, California); Nadia Podoroska, tennis (Alicante, Spain); Alejandro Tosti, golf (Gainesville, Florida) & Rocco Ríos-Novo, soccer (Los Angeles, California) Aruba: Philip Elhage, shooting (Willemstad, Curaçao) & Just Van Aanholt, sailing (Willemstad, Curaçao) Australia: Alex De Minaur, tennis (Alicante, Spain); Thaisa Erwin, equestrian (Middleburg, Virginia); Raphaelle Gauthier, swimming (Montreal, Quebec); Daniel Golubovic, athletics (Manhattan Beach, California); Min Jee, table tennis (Seoul, South Korea); Miloš Maksimović, water polo (Novi Sad, Serbia); Jacob Merčep, water polo (Dubrovnik, Croatia); Kathryn Mitchell, athletics (Monte Carlo, Monaco); Georgii Okorokov, wrestling (Yakutsk, Russia); Hilary Scott, equestrian (Valkenswaard, The Netherlands); Ajla Tomljanović, tennis (Boca Raton, Florida); Josh Turner, rugby (Hamilton, New Zealand); Samantha Whitcomb, basketball (Ventura, California) & Joshua Yong; swimming (Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei) Austria: Lorena Abicht, sailing (Hamburg, Germany); Valentin Bontus, sailing (Poetto, Italy); Alina Kornelli, sailing (Munich, Germany); Lukas Mähr, sailing (Eichenzell, Germany); Elisabeth Straka, archery (Hamburg, Germany) & Josef Straka, golf (Vestavia Hills, Alabama) Azerbaijan: Tiffany Hayes, basketball (Winter Haven, Florida); Uşangi Kokauri, judo (Gori, Georgia); Zelym Kotsoiev, judo (Vladikavkaz, Russia); Magomedkhan Magomedov, wrestling (Aleksandriskaya, Russia); Georgi Meshvildishvili, wrestling (Tbilisi, Georgia); Alexandra Mollenhauer, basketball (Lindale, Texas); Mariya Stadnyk, wrestling (Lviv, Ukraine) & Marcedes Walker, basketball (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) Bahrain: Amani Al-Obaidli, swimming (Brisbane, Australia); Tigist Gashaw-Beday, athletics (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia); Askerbii Gerbekov, judo (Roscha, Russia); Gor Minasyan, weightlifting (Gyumri, Armenia); Lesman Paredes (Buenaventura, Colombia) & Akhmed Tazhudinov (Gergebil, Russia) Belgium: Thomas Detry, golf (Dubai, U.A.E.); Adrien Dumont-De Chassart, golf (St. Johns County, Florida) & Delphine Nkansa, athletics (Paris, France) Benin: Valentin Houinato, judo (Sainte-Geneviève-Des-Bois, France) & Alex Kpade, swimming (Le Havre, France) Bermuda: Dara Alizadeh, rowing (Brookline, Massachusetts) & Erica Hawley, triathlon (Boulder, Colorado) Bolivia: Esteban Núñez, swimming (Antibes, France) Brazil: Nicolas Albiero, swimming (Louisville, Kentucky); Angelina Costantino, soccer (Jersey City, New Jersey); Laura De Andrade, tennis (Barcelona, Spain); Tatiana Dos Santos, surfing (Kauai County, Hawaii); Camilla Gluckstein, gymnastics (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey); Nathalie Mollhausen, fencing (Milan, Italy); Thiago Monteiro, tennis (Buenos Aires, Argentina); Rodrigo Pessoa, equestrian (Wilton, Connecticut); Luana Silva, surfing (Honolulu County, Hawaii); Felipe Toledo, surfing (San Clemente, California) & Thiago Wild, tennis (Buenos Aires, Argentina) British Virgin Islands: Adaejah Hodge, athletics (Douglasville, Georgia) Brunei: Hayley Wong, swimming (Pudong, China) Bulgaria: Aik Mnatsakarian, wrestling (Akhalkalaki, Georgia); Kevin Penev, gymnastics (Penfield, New York) & Magomed Ramazanov, wrestling (Khasavyurtovsky, Russia)

[juliehowlin]

Algeria

There is one species of monkey native to Algeria - the Barbary macaque. The animal most associated with the country is the fennec, a type of fox. The national football team is known as "les fennecs".

10 things you might not know about Algeria:

[bloghrexach]

🥊 … “Who is Imane Khelif?

Born in 1999, Khelif is from rural northwestern Algeria. Her father initially didn’t approve of girls participating in boxing, but Khelif said she gave up soccer as a teenager to pursue her new passion, even though she had to travel 10 kilometers each way to the gym.

Khelif eventually caught the attention of Algeria’s national team, making her major tournament debut in 2018 with a first-round loss at the AIBA — now the International Boxing Association — world championships. She lost five of her first six elite-level bouts, but improved and excelled.

Khelif was one of Algeria’s first three Olympic women’s boxers sent to Tokyo three years ago. She won her opening bout but lost her second to eventual gold medalist Kellie Harrington of Ireland.” … 🥊

@hrexach

[anthonysc2971]

Score Big with Best Set-Top Box for FIFA 2024 Fans

With the excitement of FIFA 2024, have you chosen the right set-top box to enjoy this year’s tournament? FIFA Series 2024 is exciting fans globally with friendly matches among national teams from 24 FIFA Member Associations. Hosted in Algeria, Azerbaijan,…