Month: May 2017

Steven Holcomb was simultaneously ordinary and remarkable.

America’s best bobsled pilot was a self-described computer geek who would rub elbows with Hollywood stars. He was never exactly in the best of shape, yet was a world-class athlete. He attempted suicide years ago, then revealed his story with hopes of helping others. He was a man who nearly went blind, then became an Olympic gold medalist.

His life was the epitome of a bobsled race, filled with twists and turns.

‘Huge loss, huge loss’

It came to a most unexpected end Saturday in Lake Placid, New York, when he was found dead in his room at the Olympic Training Center, sending shock waves through the U.S. Olympic community, and devastating those who had known Holcomb for the entirety of his two-decade career in sliding.

The three-time Olympian, three-time Olympic medalist and five-time world champion was 37.

“The only reason why the USA is in any conversation in the sport of bobsled is because of Steve Holcomb,” said U.S. bobsled pilot Nick Cunningham, who roomed next to Holcomb in Lake Placid. “He was the face of our team. He was the face of our sport. We all emulated him. Every driver in the world watched him, because he was that good at what he did. It’s a huge loss, huge loss, not just for our team but for the entire bobsled community.”

No cause of death was immediately announced. However, officials said there were no indications of foul play after the preliminary parts of an ongoing investigation were completed.

An autopsy was scheduled for Sunday. Funeral arrangements are expected to be finalized in the coming days.

“USA Bobsled and Skeleton is a family and right now we are trying to come to grips with the loss of our teammate, our brother and our friend,” federation CEO Darrin Steele said.

Vancouver moment

Holcomb was a native of Park City, Utah, and his signature moment came at the 2010 Vancouver Games when he piloted his four-man sled to a win that snapped a 62-year gold-medal drought for the U.S. in bobsled’s signature race.

Holcomb also drove to bronze medals in both two- and four-man events at the Sochi Games in 2014, and was expected to be part of the 2018 U.S. Olympic team headed to the Pyeongchang Games.

“The entire Olympic family is shocked and saddened by the incredibly tragic loss today of Steven Holcomb,” U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun said. “Steve was a tremendous athlete and even better person, and his perseverance and achievements were an inspiration to us all. Our thoughts and prayers are with Steve’s family and the entire bobsledding community.”

Holcomb was still one of the world’s elite drivers, finishing second on the World Cup circuit in two-man points and third in four-man points this past season.

A mass of medals

The final victory of his career was last December in Lake Placid. He won 60 World Cup medals in his career, 10 more at the world championships and three in the Olympics, making him one of the most decorated pilots in the world.

“You will be loved, missed and remembered forever,” U.S. women’s pilot Jamie Greubel Poser wrote on Twitter.

Holcomb was cherubic, almost always happy in public, someone whose sense of humor was well-known throughout the close-knit bobsled world. Teammates even spent a season chronicling his “Holcy Dance,” a little less-than-rhythmic shuffle that he would do at each stop on the World Cup circuit to make fellow sliders laugh.

Troubled side

But there was also a troubled side, including battles with depression and alcohol, plus a failed hotel-room suicide attempt involving sleeping pills in 2007 which he wrote about in his autobiography, “But Now I See: My Journey from Blindness to Olympic Gold.”

“After going through all that and still being here, I realized what my purpose was,” Holcomb told the AP in a 2014 interview.

The depression, he believed, largely stemmed from his fight with a disease called keratoconus. Holcomb’s vision degenerated to the point where he was convinced that his bobsled career was ending, and his mood quickly started going dark as well.

His eyesight was saved in a surgery that turned his 20-500 vision into something close to perfect, and his sliding career took off from there.

Winning gold with push athletes Steve Mesler, Curt Tomasevicz and Justin Olsen at the Vancouver Olympics turned Holcomb into a full-fledged star. 

In the months that followed, Holcomb met President Barack Obama, played golf with Charles Barkley, hung out with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes — they were then a couple — visited the New York Stock Exchange, threw the ceremonial first pitch at a Cleveland Indians game and went to the Indianapolis 500.

In the bobsled world, he was larger than life.

“We’re all still in shock,” Cunningham said. “I don’t know if mourning will happen for a long time, because the shock part will take a while.”
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Always Dreaming splashed through the slop to win the Kentucky Derby by 2¾ lengths Saturday, giving trainer Todd Pletcher and jockey John Velazquez their second victories in the race but their first together.

Pletcher and Velazquez have teamed up often over the years and are the sport’s leading money winners. On their own, they were a combined 2 for 63 coming into America’s greatest horse race. Pletcher won in 2010 with Super Saver; Velazquez won the following year with Animal Kingdom.

Together, they were unbeatable on a cool and rainy day at Churchill Downs.

Sent off at 9-2 odds, Always Dreaming made it the fifth straight year that a Derby favorite has won, the longest such stretch since the 1970s.

Always Dreaming was followed across the finish line by a pair of long shots: 33-1 Lookin At Lee and 40-1 Battle of Midway.

Always Dreaming ran 1¼ miles in 2:03.59 and paid $11.40, $7.20 and $5.80.

Lookin At Lee returned $26.60 and $18.20, while Battle of Midway was another five lengths back in third and paid $20.80 to show.

Classic Empire finished fourth, followed by Practical Joke, Tapwrit, Gunnevera, McCraken, Gormley and Irish War Cry. Hence was 11th, followed by Untrapped, Girvin, Patch, J Boys Echo, Sonneteer, Fast and Accurate, Irap, and State of Honor.

Pletcher also trains Tapwrit and Patch.

Thunder Snow, the Dubai-based entry, didn’t finish. He broke poorly out of the starting gate and began bucking. He was caught by the outrider and he walked back to the barn on his own.
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Thunderstorms and wind had delayed the Hindenburg’s arrival in New Jersey from Germany on May 6, 1937. The father of 8-year-old Werner Doehner headed to his cabin after using his movie camera to shoot some scenes of Lakehurst Naval Air Station from the airship’s dining room.

“We didn’t see him again,” recalled Doehner, now 88 and the only person left of the 62 passengers and crew who survived the fire that killed his father, sister and 34 other souls 80 years ago Saturday.

Doehner and his parents, older brother and sister were returning from a vacation in Germany and planned to travel on the 804-foot-long Hindenburg to Lakehurst, then fly to Newark and board a train in nearby New York City to take them home to Mexico City, where Doehner’s father was a pharmaceutical executive.

The children would have preferred the decks and public rooms of an ocean liner because space was tight on the airship, Doehner said in a rare telephone interview this week with The Associated Press from his home in Parachute, Colorado.

Their mother brought games to keep the children busy. They toured the control car and the catwalks inside the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg. They could see an ice field as they crossed the Atlantic Ocean, he remembered.

As the Hindenburg arrived at its destination, flames began to flicker on top of the ship.

Hydrogen, exposed to air, fueled an inferno. The front section of the Hindenburg pitched up and the back section pitched down.

“Suddenly the air was on fire,” Doehner said.

“We were close to a window, and my mother took my brother and threw him out. She grabbed me and fell back and then threw me out,” he said.

“She tried to get my sister, but she was too heavy, and my mother decided to get out by the time the zeppelin was nearly on the ground.”

His mother had broken her hip.

“I remember lying on the ground, and my brother told me to get up and to get out of there.” Their mother joined them and asked a steward to get her daughter, whom he carried out of the burning wreckage.

A bus took the survivors to an infirmary, where, Doehner said, a nurse gave him a needle to burst his blisters.

From there, the family was taken to Point Pleasant Hospital. Doehner had burns to his face, both hands and down his right leg from the knee. His mother had burns to her face, both legs and both hands. His brother had several burns on his face and right hand.

His sister died early in the morning.

He would remain in the hospital for three months before going to a hospital in New York City in August for skin grafts. He was discharged in January, and the boy, a German speaker, had learned some English.

“Burns take a long time to heal,” he said.

The family returned to Mexico City, where funerals were held for Doehner’s father and sister, who were among the 35 fatalities of the 97 passengers and crew aboard the airship. A worker on the ground also died.

The U.S. Commerce Department determined the accident was caused by a leak of the hydrogen that kept the airship aloft. It mixed with air, causing a fire. “The theory that a brush discharge ignited such mixture appears most probable,” the department’s report said.

Eight decades later, Doehner is the only one left to remember what it was like on the Hindenburg that night. A ceremony commemorating the disaster will take place at the crash site Saturday night.

“Only two others who ever flew on the airship are alive,” said Carl Jablonski, president of the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society. “But they weren’t on the last flight.”

Interest in the disaster remains strong as ever, Jablonski said.

“The internet and social media has exposed and attracted the interest of a younger generation,” he said.

The Hindenburg, Doehner said, is “something you don’t forget.”
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The U.S. Kentucky Derby, the first of three major yearly horse races in the United States, will take place on Saturday with rain in the forecast, adding another variable to an already unpredictable race.

The 20-horse field lacks a clear dominant horse following winter preparatory races, and the 40 percent chance of rain predicted for Saturday could create a sloppy track ripe for an underdog victory.

The last four Derby races have all been won by the favorite. However, without a dominant runner in the race, spectators and betters are also looking at the possibility of a long-shot win this year.

Classic Empire, at odds of 4-1, is the narrow pre-race favorite in the opener of the U.S. Triple Crown, held at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.

Two horses, Always Dreaming and McCraken, are the co-second choices at 5-1.

The underdogs include Patch, rated 30-1, a one-eyed horse who drew starting gate number 20, the farthest outside gate. Patch will not be able to see any of his competition at the start of the race because of his left eye patch and lane draw.  

Patch’s trainer, Todd Pletcher, also has two other horses in the race, 5-1 shot Always Dreaming, and 20-1 odds Tapwrit.

Another trainer, Steve Asmussen also has three horses in the race, all long shots.

Bob Baffert, a four-time derby winner not competing in this year’s event, told the Associated Press there is “a lot of parity” in this year’s race, but it was hard for him to pick a winner.

“I think Classic Empire is probably the best horse in the race. Todd’s horse has brilliance, Always Dreaming. If they can get him figured out, he could steal it. The rest are bombers,” he said.

 
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J.K. Rowling is launching a free online book club for fans and newcomers to her “Harry Potter” series.

The Wizarding World Book Club will launch in June in celebration of the 20th anniversary of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” the first in what would become a seven-book series.

The online community “aims to surprise and delight those who have never read a Harry Potter book, as well as returning readers who want to join the conversation,” says Pottermore, Rowling’s digital publishing arm.

The club says its goal is to “create a global community of Harry Potter readers who are communicating with each other as they are reading the same book, at the same time.”
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Eliud Kipchoge was 26 seconds from making history Saturday but the Olympic champion finished just short of becoming the first person to run a marathon in less than two hours. 

Kipchoge ran the 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers) in 2 hours, 26 seconds, beating Dennis Kimetto’s world mark of 2:02:57.

The 32-year-old Kenyan did break his personal best time of 2:03:05, which was set at the London Marathon last year.

Organizers first listed his time as a second faster, then changed it to 26 seconds off the 2-hour mark.

The attempt at Monza’s Formula One race course did not go down as an official world record, sanctioned by the IAAF, because of variables like pacers entering midrace and drinks being given to runners via mopeds. 

And, after three years of planning, Nike’s audacious attempt at breaking the two-hour barrier remained just that, despite the aid of a shoe that designers say will make runners 4 percent more efficient.

Two-time Boston Marathon winner Lelisa Desisa, from Ethiopia, and Eritrean half-marathon world-record holder Zersenay Tadese were also part of the Breaking2 project, which started at 5:45 a.m., but finished well off the pace.

The 32-year-old ran his trademark relaxed style and passed the halfway mark in 59:54, but his average pace of 4:36 per mile was just not enough, despite his final sprint to the tape.
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Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly comes to the Kennedy Center in Washington with Albanian-American soprano Ermonela Jaho playing the title role. Jaho is fast becoming one of the most sought-after sopranos in the world. She credits her success to her emotional surrender to every role, including Puccini’s masterpiece, which she says is rooted in her own origin. VOA’s Keida Kostreci reports.
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In 1971, 24 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier by becoming the first African-American baseball player, the Pittsburgh Pirates made history by fielding the first all minority team. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, the Pirates continue to break ground for Major League Baseball, now by looking beyond borders to find new talent for America’s pastime.
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In Aleppo, Syria, even as Bashar al-Assad’s regime destroys the city and its inhabitants with barrel bombs and airstrikes, many civilians risk their lives to rescue the injured and pull the dead from the rubble. Since 2013, these volunteers from all walks of life have created the Syrian Civil Defense, known to the world as The White Helmets. 

In his documentary, Last Men in Aleppo, Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad delivers an unprecedented testimonial of their sacrifices and love for their besieged city. While bombs explode all around, White Helmets set off in their makeshift van, siren on, speeding to the latest site of destruction.

Khaled is the main character, and though by no means the only hero, one gets attached to his stoic persona. Khaled is calm, a rock of strength to his community, a loving father to his two lively children. 

We follow his gaze as he looks to the sky, eyeing the approaching bombers. Sometimes, they are Assad’s, other times, they are Russian. The locals can tell them apart easily. Every sighting portends new attacks and death. 

After the bombs drop

In the middle of a city in ruins, Khaled is one of the last men left in Aleppo to drag the injured and the dying from under tons of concrete.

They dig with shovels, with their hands, with everything they’ve got. One of the most emotionally draining scenes is the gentle pulling of an infant from under the debris. The White Helmets drag the child out, head first, through a sharp jagged hole of a collapsed building. The baby is bleeding and powdered with dust, but he’s alive. 

Other children are not that lucky. The camera focuses steadily as they are dragged out, while people scream, sob and rush to cradle the small, limp bodies.

Sundance award

Filmmaker Feras Fayyad won one of the top awards at the Sundance Film Festival for Last Men in Aleppo. But he does not take full credit. The recording of these scenes was the work of a group of cinematographers, The Aleppo Media Center, who followed the White Helmets day and night under relentless bombings. 

Fayyad said he wanted to call attention to the crimes against humanity committed in the city. He also wanted to show the world that these civilians who face death every day and live their lives in constant fear are no different than the rest of us.

“There are markets, houses with families, people who fight for common values,” he said. “No one is acting and the Syrians feel despondent. People did not choose this life. These people did not join ISIS. These people try to live,” he said.

Last Men in Aleppo focuses on those Syrians who chose to stay. Like Khaled.

He is very aware of the dangers his wife and children face daily. But he doesn’t want to run. He tells his friend Abu Yousef, another White Helmet, that refugees are treated inhumanely and fears that if he sends his kids away they could face a dire fate without him, and that he might never see them again. 

“This is my city. I was born and raised here. Should I leave it to some stranger? I will not leave,” he said.

Fayyad’s documentary is an indictment of crimes against humanity. But it is also about compassion and resilience. In the middle of destruction, people still find joy among friends and family.

Targeting civilians 

“This was one of the reasons that motivated me to make the story, the killings of civilians,” Fayyad said. “I started with the idea that the war brings out the worst in humans but also brings the best in humans.”

Fayyad started filming the siege of Aleppo in 2013. He said he was arrested and imprisoned twice and had to leave the city. He could not return because, “a huge number of people were being killed then by Russian bombings.” 

After that, he employed the help of others, such as The Aleppo Media Center, video journalists and citizen journalists, who under his instructions would pick up a camera and document life and death in Aleppo. Nowadays, he lives in exile. He would face death should he return to Syria.

“I have the feeling of anger for the Russians, of course. I have the feeling of anger for the regime killing the Syrians every day. Now I’m sitting here in the studio and there are bombings in places next to my family that is still living in Syria and I could lose my family any time,” he said. 

When asked if he was surprised by reports that Assad had gassed his own people, he said, “not at all.”

The film may be hard to watch but it must be watched. And though painful, it is also uplifting, depicting the altruism that cannot be smothered. 

While Last Men in Aleppo focuses on those Syrians who choose to stay in their war-torn country, it also helps us empathize with those who leave. During the filming of this documentary, Khaled, like countless others, was killed saving his neighbors.
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In Aleppo, Syria, while the Assad regime destroyed the city and its inhabitants, many civilians risked their lives to rescue the injured and pull the dead from the rubble. Since 2013, these volunteers have created the Syrian Civil Defense, known as The White Helmets. Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad delivers a testimonial of their sacrifices. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke with Fayyad.
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Donkey Kong, the iconic 1980s video game, has been inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame.

According to the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, the arcade game quickly sold over 100,000 units in the United States alone, in addition to unknown quantities of home versions.

Donkey Kong was the creation of Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, who was a relatively unknown employee when he came up with the idea in 1981.

The game centered around a hero who must jump barrels, climb ladders, smash fireballs and battle a monster ape in order to save his love.

The hero, originally called Jumpman, was a particularly popular aspect of the game and later morphed into Mario, a character featured in dozens of games today.

“His telltale outfit, bristling mustache, and joyous jumps made Mario an icon of popular culture,” the museum said in a news release.

Donkey Kong was joined by Halo: Combat Evolved and Street Fighter II, which were also given places in the museum’s permanent exhibit. Other games honored in the past include Sonic the Hedgehog, The Sims, Doom, Pong and World of Warcraft. Microsoft’s iconic solitaire was nominated, but did not win a spot.

Anyone can nominate games for consideration, but the final choice is made by journalists, academics and gaming experts.
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A multimillion-dollar development project outside Washington has been put on hold pending an archaeological investigation to determine if the project is being built on top of a historically significant century-old black cemetery. VOA’s Chris Simkins reports from Bethesda, Maryland, that a fight over the site has uncovered the history of a mostly forgotten African American community.
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Three young Ethiopian girls use their superpowers to stop harmful practices against girls in rural areas and to promote access to school. That is the story behind “Tibeb Girls,” a new animated series developed in Ethiopia.

“Tibeb Girls” is the first animated cartoon in which Ethiopian girls play not only the lead characters, but are also portrayed as superheroes. “Tibeb” means wisdom in Amharic.

“For me, it was very important to have girls who look like me and who look like my child to be on the screen playing very good role models,” said Bruktawit Tigabu, who created “Tibeb Girls.”

The animated cartoon breaks taboos by discussing things such as menstruation and, in the first episode, the lead characters save a girl from child marriage.

Bruktawit screens the show at schools and events around Ethiopia.

“Most of the issues we are raising are not well discussed in the community or in school or in the house,” she said. “So that is another inspiration to really break the taboo and give them a very entertaining, but also engaging way to talk about very serious subjects.”

The animated series is produced in Addis Ababa with a team of voice actors, artists and writers.

Representing and empowering girls is a big responsibility. Therefore the writers, such as Mahlet Haileyesus, put a lot of preparation into an episode.

“We try to include everybody, like the relevant stakeholders, government bureaus, specific target groups,” said Mahlet Haileyesus, one of the show’s writers. “And then once the synopsis is developed, we do prototyping, which means we go to the field and test it.”

“Tibeb Girls” is also published as a comic strip that Meaza Takele reads to her young children each night before they go to bed.

“When I ask my children why they love the cartoon, they say it’s because now they have a cartoon that is Ethiopian and where their own language is spoken,” she said.

Creator Bruktawit hopes to raise funds to further develop the TV show, as she tries to sell the first season to broadcasters in Ethiopia and other African countries where young girls face the same issues.
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Laura Poitras announces early in her Julian Assange documentary Risk: “This is not the film I thought I was making.”

“I thought I could ignore the contradictions,” the Oscar-winning Citizenfour filmmaker says in a voiceover. “I thought they were not part of the story. I was so wrong. They are becoming the story.”

Decoding “the story” when it comes to the WikiLeaks founder has never been easy. It’s evolving even now, just as Poitras’ six-years-in-the-making documentary — one made with rare access to an explosively controversial figure under ever-increasing international pressure — is hitting theaters. 

Following WikiLeaks publishing of a trove of CIA hacking documents in March, the Department of Justice is reportedly preparing to seek the arrest of Assange, who has been holed away in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for nearly five years to avoid extradition to Sweden. On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton blamed “Russian WikiLeaks” for swaying November’s election by publishing hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee. (Assange, responding Wednesday on Twitter, told Clinton to “Blame yourself.”)

Also on Wednesday, FBI director James Comey, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the FBI had “high confidence” Russia was behind the DNC hacking. Comey said WikiLeaks was publishing damaging “intelligence porn.” Assange responded Thursday on Twitter, accusing Comey of lying during his testimony.

‘Very complex picture’

Poitras, whose Citizenfour went behind the headlines to reveal NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden, initially hoped that Risk would do something similar for Assange. She was making an intimate documentary about a brave visionary who risks everything in his crusade to make governments transparent. But, like many others who have been confounded by the WikiLeaks founder, Poitras underwent an evolution in her opinion of Assange. It’s a journey she documents in the film, running right up until now.

“The ambivalence and struggle, I share that. I did try to let the audience see a very complex picture. And I grapple with it,” Poitras said in an interview Tuesday. “For me, I absolutely support and defend their right to publish and I think that they have brought forward extraordinarily important information through their publishing. And I’m also disturbed by some of the things that are said in the film and I didn’t want to exclude those things. That’s not my job, to paint a simplistic portrait.”

Poitras first contacted Assange in 2010 after WikiLeaks published the Collateral Murder video, which showed a U.S. helicopter in Iraq shooting several men, including two Reuters journalists. Poitras, who became focused on making films about post-9/11 surveillance, was welcomed into Assange’s inner circle. Risk captures some of the inside drama behind many earth-shattering WikiLeaks publications; it opens with Assange trying to reach Clinton at the State Department ahead of the imminent leak of thousands of diplomatic cables.

It also shows Assange in a bracingly intimate, sometimes surreal way: getting his hair cut by his loyal followers; disguising himself before fleeing to Ecuador’s embassy; being interviewed by Lady Gaga. There are hints, too, of the accusations that have often followed him, like that he runs WikiLeaks like its own intelligence agency.

Early reaction to film

Poitras first premiered the film a year ago at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was received largely positively. But some questioned whether Poitras was too closely aligned with her subject. Variety wondered if it was a “glorified fan film.” The Guardian labeled it “an embedded report that sacrifices impartiality for access.”

“I never define myself as an activist. I define myself as a journalist and a filmmaker,” said Poitras. “There’s a long tradition of journalism that’s first-person perspective. I don’t think that journalism is by definition activism. I think it’s just stories that are told from a subjective point of view.”

But developments that followed that premiere led Poitras to recut her film. She added the voiceovers that question and occasionally distance herself from Assange. She updated the film to include the DNC leak and allegations of a Russian connection, and even late last month went back in to include Attorney General Jeff Sessions vow to make Assange’s arrest “a priority.”

Numerous alleged victims also came forward to accuse Jacob Appelbaum, a WikiLeaks insider and significant personality in the film, of sexual harassment and bullying. (Appelbaum has denied it.) Poitras added to the film her acknowledgement of a previous relationship with Appelbaum and said he was abusive to someone close to her after their relationship ended. A representative for Appelbaum didn’t respond to a request for comment about the film or abuse allegations.

Slate, however, still criticized the updated Risk as “what happens when a filmmaker gets too close to her subject.” Yet Risk also repeatedly shows questionable behavior by Assange. In one scene he calls the rape allegation in Sweden, which he has denied, “a thoroughly tawdry radical feminist political positioning thing.”

Assange calls film ‘a threat’

Poitras has shown him multiple cuts of the film. Before the Cannes screening, he texted her that he considers Risk “a threat” to him personally.

“There were pressuring demands that I remove scenes from the film — that I didn’t — that involved what he was talking about in terms of the Swedish case,” said Poitras. “I don’t think he has legitimate reason to [perceive the film as a threat].” 

Assange and WikiLeaks also did not respond to requests for comment.

Citizenfour came about while Poitras was working on Risk. She was contacted by Snowden, who said he wanted to leak NSA documents to her, and she put him in touch with reporter Glenn Greenwald and documented their clandestine meetings in a Hong Kong hotel room.

“I got pulled into the story in a way that I never anticipated. Being pulled into the story led to all different types of conflicts and shifting relationships that happened that are in the film,” said Poitras. “I’m part of the story now.”

She nearly abandoned the Assange project but, convinced of its value to history, eventually returned to it.

“This is a moment of shifting power dynamics and how the internet is impacting that, for better and for worse,” said Poitras. “We have a president now who communicates through Twitter. The film, I think, is trying to capture that historical moment.”
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The National Basketball Association opened its first training academy in Africa on Thursday in a push to expand its presence on the continent and prepare more African players to enter the league, its vice president for Africa said.

The academy is in Senegal, where a sports development program in partnership with the NBA has already produced professional players including Minnesota Timberwolves center-forward Gorgui Dieng.

“The goal of the NBA Academy Africa is to create a more direct path for young people who have talent so that their future is not determined by chance,” Amadou Gallo Fall told reporters in Senegal’s capital, Dakar.

The academy is part of a push to expand recruitment worldwide and follows three academies launched in China last year. Two more are slated to open in India and Australia.

The number of international players in the NBA has been increasing, with a record 113 on opening-night rosters for the 2016-17 season. But most are European, with only 14 from Africa.

Soccer more popular

Basketball has long been eclipsed by soccer on the continent. Even former basketball superstars such as Nigeria’s Hakeem Olajuwon did not learn to play the game until their late teens.

“If you could find a kid from Africa that can shoot the ball, that’s kind of special. Why? Because he doesn’t have the resources,” said academy technical director Roland Houston, as 20 lanky teenagers practiced at a training camp in the Senegalese city of Thies this week.

The NBA academy will build on the Sports for Education and Economic Development (SEED) Project, which has trained young players in Senegal since it was founded in 2002.

Twelve players will be selected to join the inaugural class. All will receive scholarships to the academy, which will also provide academic courses and mentoring.

“I see basketball as something that … has already taken me places. Basketball has made me meet people I never expected to meet, people I never wished I could even shake hands with,” said Timothy Ighoeffe, 17, one of the hopefuls from Nigeria.

The NBA is also counting on the move to help it reach new audiences in Africa, where it has slowly been building its brand. It held its first African exhibition game in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2015 and signed a major trans-African broadcast deal last year.
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