At the 2024 Gangwon Games, the first Winter Youth Olympics held in Asia, promising winter sports stars from various countries appeared. In particular, the legacy left behind by the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics held in Gangwon-do six years ago has come to fruition, and athletes from countries considered ‘barren’ have also stood out and attracted attention. Tunisia, located on the Mediterranean coast of Africa, engraved its name in Winter Olympics history for the first time through the Gangwon Games.
Tunisia, which has participated in the Summer Olympics since the 1960 Rome Games and won gold medals in swimming and track and field, but has never participated in the Winter Olympics, recorded its first participation in the Winter Olympics with the participation of three bobsledders in the Gangwon Games. Jonathan Rurimi, who competed in the men’s monobob (single-seater), and Sophie Gorbal and Beya Mokrani, who competed in the women’s monobob, are the protagonists of new history. Since 2020, they have nurtured their dream of becoming ‘bobsled athletes’ through the winter sports athlete training project for underdeveloped and developing countries, hosted by Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Gangwon Special Self-Governing Province, and Pyeongchang County and organized by the 2018 Pyeongchang Memorial Foundation, and have reached the Olympic stage.
This project, which was implemented to inherit and develop the legacy of the Pyeongchang Olympics, provided athletes from countries with underdeveloped winter sports the opportunity to train in Pyeongchang or participate in international competitions to qualify for Gangwon 2024.On the 22nd of last month, Gorbal and Mokrani raced at the Alpensia Sliding Center in Pyeongchang, marking Tunisia’s ‘Winter Olympics debut’ even though it was a Youth Olympics. Then, in the men’s monobob competition on the 23rd, Rurimi won the silver medal following Korea’s Soh Jae-hwan (Sangji Daegwallyeong High School), becoming Tunisia’s first Winter Olympics medalist. He has a bigger dream, saying, “I want to work hard and 카지노사이트 participate in the real Winter Olympics in 2026 or 2030.”