by Michel Sailhan
BAGHDAD, Aug 6 (AFP) - Fear mingles with excitement for 29 Iraqi atheletes competing in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, as they aspire to the pinnacle of sporting achievement despite miserable training conditions at home.
"I am very happy and at the same time I'm very frightened," said 19-year-old Ala Hekmat, a 100m and 200m sprinter, amid the pomp and circumstance of a leaving ceremony organised ahead of the team's departure for Europe.
"It's the first time I'll go abroad and I am the only woman in the team. It's a big responsibility.
"I really hope to win something, I'm aware that I'm representing my country and that people are watching me. It's not easy," she admitted, as a uniformed orchestra played Viennese waltzes in a Baghdad gym, formerly named after deposed dicator Saddam Hussein.
"I have a double dream," said Iraqi Olympic Committee President Ahmed el-Hajjiya Samarrai.
"Firstly, to see our team, with the Iraqi flag, parade in peace with other countries, and secondly, to win a medal and we have big hopes in football and weightlifting."
It was in these two sports that Iraq qualified for the August 13-29 Games.
Iraq will also take part in swimming, athletics, taekwondo, boxing and judo.
"We call the football team the team of the future," said 23-year-old winger Basim Abbas.
"It makes me sad when I see all that is happening here, we love our country so much.
"But I am optimistic that one day there will be a new Iraq and that the people on the Olympic committee will improve sport in Iraq."
Saddam's elder son Uday used to chaired the Iraq Olympic Committee and the Iraqi Football Federation until his father's regime crumbled in 2003.
Under his chairmanship, athletes who lost championships or incurred his displeasure were routinely tortured.
Since 1948, Iraq has won only one Olympic medal - when weightlifter Aziz Addel Wahed won a bronze in the 1960 Games in Rome.
Training is far from easy in a country ravaged by poverty, war and more than a decade of international sanctions.
"All the facilities were destroyed during the war, there are transport difficulties, she doesn't have decent shoes. At last, the Olympic committee helped her, financially speaking as well," said Hekmat's mother Hanna Hamid.
"I had some problems, but that's all finished. Everything is fine, everything is perfect at the moment," insisted Hekmat.
She still lacks a decent track on which to train.
Despite appalling insecurity in Iraq, parents were content to bask in their admiration of their talented children.
"He will put Iraq's name in lights, we are proud," said the mother of Iraq's sole boxing hope in Athens, Najah Salah (48 kilos).
"He left four months ago and is now training in the United States. I really hope I see him on television," she added.