The Secretary General of the Egyptian Olympic Committee, Sherif El-Aryan, revealed how many Egyptian athletes are set to participate in the Tokyo Olympics.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics are set to start this summer on July 23 up until August 11. Egypt is set to compete in 24 sports ranging from archery to cycling to gymnastics and football.
Talking about what to expect from these athletes this summer, El-Aryan said that they can break, or at least equal, the country’s previous record.
“Egypt’s delegation in the Tokyo Olympics consists of 134 athletes so far, and they can reach 140 until June 28, the last date for Egyptian athletes to qualify,” he told OnTime Sport FM.
“This is the largest Egyptian delegation in the history of the Olympics, surpassing our record in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
“Egypt will compete in 24 sports, which is also the largest number of sports that Egypt has participated in historically.
“The goal of the Olympic Committee is always to participate with the largest number of players, and this has already been achieved. As for the number of medals that we will get, it will depend on the performance of the athletes,” he added.
None of Egypt’s weightlifters will be able to compete at the Olympics after they were banned International Weightlifting Federation because it was proven that the Egyptian Weightlifting Federation (EWF) was doping its athletes during the Youth African games.
This includes previous Olympic medalists Sarah Samir and Mohamed Ihab, making the country’s chances of winning several medals even more slim.
“Our best record is winning 5 medals, on more than one occasion. If Sarah Samir and Mohamed Ihab were present, I would have expected that they would get two medals, and therefore it would be easy to reach 5 medals. But we have 20 players who are able to compete for medals. This is something I can say with confident,” Al-Aryan elaborated.
