| www.euronews.com The European Parliament has just voted to ask the International Olympic Committee to allow Kosovan athletes to take part in the London Olympic Games. It is the latest voice calling for Kosovan atheletes to at least be free to run, jump, and swim on the world stage, even if most countries still do not recognise its statehood. However, until some key changes can be made, Kosovo's sporting dreams will remain just that; dreams. No-one dreams the Olympic dream more than Majlinda Kelmendi. Iron will brought her to the very top of world judo. But at the "Ippon Judo Club" in Peja, a town in western Kosovo everyone knows it will be politics that decide whether olympic hopeful Kelmendi will be allowed to represent her native Kosovo at this year's Olympic Games in London. Unless the International Olympic Committee decides to recognise the country as an independent State - and follows 89 countries that have done so already - judo champion Kelmendi will be unable to fly the young Balkan nation's flag. Kelmendi's coach, Driton Kuka, has already had a taste of how politics can interfere in sport: In 1992, he was due to represent Yugoslavia at the Barcelona Olympics, when the country slid into war. At the age of 19, his olympic dream was shattered...'but you,' he tells Majlinda, 'you will make it.' "We did everything necessary during training to get to the top,' says Kuka. "I said, 'You are ready and well prepared. Everything now depends on you and your psychological ... |
