Africa's medal hunt

It is not likely Africa will win many golds outside the main stadium

Africa has a number of world-famous names appearing at the Olympics in Athens - but few of them are from outside the athletics arena.

Last time out, at Sydney four years ago, of the 32 medals won by African countries only four were won outside of Sydney's main Olympic Stadium.

The lack of medals from sports such as basketball, handball, volleyball, hockey and taekwondo is usually put down to the absence of competitive leagues on the continent.

But traditionally strong squads - such as ones for football and boxing - are also noticeably absent.

African teams have won gold in men's football for the last two Olympics - Nigeria won in Atlanta in 1996 and, four years later, Cameroon took their crown.

But both have failed to qualify for Athens.

This has left the men's football hopes resting with Mali and Ghana from the West, and Tunisia and Morocco from the North.

However, Nigeria's women's team, the Super Falcons, will be looking to do much better than their recent performance at the World Cup - where they conceded 11 goals and scored none in three group games.

Strongest hopes

Suffering a particularly marked decline in Australia were Africa's boxers.

At Atlanta in 1996, they took one gold, one silver and three bronze medals.

But this collapsed to just two bronze in Sydney, with the result of halving African boxing participation for the current games to just 60 competitors.

"It was observed that Africa had not been performing well at Olympic level," Berrington Mkhize, a member of the executive of the International Amateur Boxing Association (IABA), told BBC World Service's Focus On Africa magazine.

Sadly, one of the strongest medal hopes - Kenyan light flyweight champion Suleiman Bilali - has been forced to withdraw after an attack by robbers aggravated a knee injury initially sustained when a minibus taxi (mutatu) tout slammed the door on his leg.

And following featherweight David Munyasia's failed drug test, Kenya, a powerhouse of boxing in the 1980s, will not be represented at all.

Another notable absentee is Eric "The Eel" Moussambani.

Moussambani shot to fame four years ago as the swimmer of the slowest time for the 100m in Olympic history. However, the fact he competed at all - he had never before seen a proper swimming pool - summed up the spirit of the Games for many.

But problems over his passport mean he will not be able to travel to Athens.

But Africa did enjoy some success in the swimming pool last time out, with South Africans Terence Parkin and Penny Heynes returning home with a silver and bronze respectively.

Parkin is again among Africa's medal favourites for the pool, along with compatriots Roland Schoeman, Ryk Neethling, and Gerhard Zandberg.

However 20-year-old Moroccan Oussama Mellouli threatens to blow them out the water - having competed at Sydney aged 16 to little effect, he is now looking very strong after claiming bronze at last year's World Championships in Barcelona.

Sporting defections

There will also be those watching for the African athletes who have set a different sort of record at recent competitions - that for disappearing.

The precedent was set during Canada's Francophone Games in 2001, when 106 participants from all over Africa defected to seek asylum in the North American country.

Eric "The Eel" will be absent

Then at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester two years ago, 21 of Sierra Leone's 30-strong team failed to return to the country. The missing athletes were branded a "national disgrace."

And there were more Sierra Leone defections last year, as 12 members of the Under-17 national football team went missing in Finland. Later that year, four of the six-strong Niger delegation disappeared in Ireland at the Special Olympics after they went shopping.

Another problem is legal defections, with high profile athletes being poached by other nations to represent them.

But for the Africans that are competing for their home countries not all, by any means, will be going home empty-handed.

It is almost certain that a high percentage of medals won in middle and long-distance track events will be taken by the North and East Africans, for example.

But the challenge is now for the rest of the continent's competitors to rise to the example set by the likes of Maria Mutola, Hicham El Guerrouj and Haile Gebresalassie and show there is African talent outside the Olympic Stadium too.