Sports In Iraq

This page talks about sports in Iraq.

While serving in Iraq, I used to have to fly to Camp Speicher. There at Speicher was the bombed-out remains of a soccer stadium, two Olympic-sized swimming pools and other sports materials.

As I walked through the Stadium, up the stairs and sat in the bleachers watching the sun set, I used to think what it must have been like in better days.

In better days, Saddam and his family had probably spent many evenings watching soccer games and probably some military parades. It was a glorious time.

Now the stadium is used by the American military for gatherings and there is a track around the soccer field where I did some jogging.

At Al Asad there was a soccer stadium that stood as a testimony to sports in Iraq. We used it to jog around, but mostly it was used for Iraqis to sell stuff to the military. There was also a pool and after several years of work, the military was able to reopen it. It was a nice facility.

In Baqubah in early 2004, we used to drive by a soccer field in the city. There would be groups of men and boys, no women or girls, out there playing soccer.

In late 2004, at the height of the insurgency, we drove by again. This time there was no one playing. The field was overgrown with weeds and trash was everywhere. People were too afraid to come out and play. The Muslim insurgents would attack anyone using the field. They were trying to stop sports in Iraq.

Below is a picture of the Stadium at Camp Spicher.

The Iraq Olympic team showed up in Athens for the 2004 Summer Games. They were considered a rag-tag team. There was a loud cheer for the team as they took to the field. Only the Greek team received a louder ovation.

The team's arrival at the 2004 Summer Games was celebrated as a coming-out party for a country scarred by war and by the reign of Saddam Hussein.

The praise kept streaming in when the soccer team ran off a string of upsets, falling just short of a bronze medal.

If the Athens Games were indeed a symbol of Iraq's re-emergence on the world stage and in international sports, the Beijing Olympics may be considered a tragic step back in time for the struggling nation.

Since the flame was extinguished in Athens, sports in Iraq have been plagued by one devastating loss after another.

While violence may have declined since the U.S.-led troop surge, the enormous losses suffered during past sectarian clashes still linger.

In the summer of 2005, 13 members of the national Taekwondo team were found dead, more than a year after they had vanished while traveling to a training site in Jordan. That horror followed the murders of the Olympic cycling and wrestling coaches.

Iraq nearly missed the 2008 Olympics entirely when allegations of government interference with the National Olympic Committee led to the team's suspension.

Al-Samarrai, the hulking former member of the national basketball team, was among the first sports figures in the nation to begin reorganizing Iraq's Olympic organization after the reign of Uday Hussein, Odisho said. Uday, the son of Saddam, had long ruled over Iraq's Olympic athletes, subjecting them to abuse and torture.

Fatah says, al-Samarrai's absence has left a giant void that is requiring athletes to demonstrate their own courage.

One of them, sprinter Dana Abdulrazak, 22, has been targeted for assassination twice in Baghdad but remains committed to the competition. "She is very proud," Fatah said.

The team of four athletes is tiny compared to the nearly 600 sent by the USA. And as in Athens, there are modest expectations. But Fatah said there still is hope. There also are efforts to keep al-Samarrai's memory alive.

Muslim radicals continue to plague sports members by trying to force their own style of religion on them. The Iraqi soccer team is sometimes called the "Brazil of Asia". Why?

This team is one of Asia's most successful. It won fourth place during the XXVIII Summer Olympic Games held in Athens, Greece, in 2004. Iraq was the only Asian country in the finals.

For sports in Iraq, I was at Al Asad on July 29, 2007, when Iraq made history by winning the Asian Nations Cup. Using a nucleus of players from Athens´s 2004 team, they beat the three-times Asian champions, Saudi Arabia, 1-0 in the final held in Jakarta, Indonesia.

In Jakarta, throughout the match, a sympathetic crowd of more than 60,000, which included thousands of Iraqi fans, chanted "Iraq ! Iraq! Iraqi flags hung from high in the stands and one large sign read, "Peace for Iraq".

It was one of the few unifying moments in the recent history of Iraq. The victory marked the first time in the tournament´s 51-year history that Iraq has won the Cup.

General David H. Petraeus, congratulated the team members and called them "an example for all of Iraq: a team of Sunni, Shia and Kurd who overcame lots of adversity to achieve a common goal, and they did it by teamwork. On that day we were all Iraqi, too".

Sports in Iraq will continue to plunge forward as the Nation tries to rebuild itself.

Thank you for your visit.

Thank you for your visit.

Go to Home Page from Sports In Iraq.