Malawi ranked 147 on Olympic flops

Malawi 2012 London Olympic team has been ranked on position 147 out of 204 countries that participated in the great sports event which ended on Sunday.

The Malawi four-member team of Ambewe Simkonda (400 metres), Joyce Tafatatha (swimmer) and Mike Tebulo (half marathon), had the individuals merely improving personal times.

Malawi is among bottom teams that returned from London empty-handed. Malawi Olympic Committee treasurer and the team’s pre-games team manager Jappie Mhango was hardly surprised with Malawi’s rank.

“Unless we invest heavily in sports, we can as well forget about medals. Botswana is smaller compared to Malawi’s population but they were able to get a medal because they invest heavily in sports,” Mhango said on Monday.

“I thought our athletes did comparatively well in London. I can challenge you that between now and 2013 we would have a qualified athlete for the games. We have work to do though. We need to concentrate on individual disciplines than team events.”

With four medals South Africa are Southern Africa best performer followed by Botswana on one medal then ‘medaless’ Angola, Comoros Island, Lesotho and Madagascar on second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth positions respectively. Malawi was sixth in this region.

On the world chart, South Africa finished 35th, Botswana 73rd, Angola 86th. The rest of the above Southern Africa nations were just put on position 86 down the pecking order. Zimbabwe are the worst ranked at the rock bottom 204th position behind Zambia.

In Africa, South Africa topped the standing followed by Ethiopia, Kenya came third, Tunisia took up fourth place then Algeria fifth, Uganda, which won its first gold medal ever, took the sixth slot. Egypt, Botswana, Gabon and Morocco made up the seventh, eighth and ninth positions.

With an awesome haul of 104 medals comprising 46 gold medals, the United States topped all nations that took part in this event followed by China’s 87 medals.