Dakar (Senegal), Nov 3 (IANS) A folding fan snaps open. A foot strikes the floor with a powerful stomp. A long staff slices through the air before trembling to a halt. At the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games, the movements of Chinese martial arts have come alive on an Olympic stage for the first time.

For Ousmane Sakho, head coach of Senegal’s national wushu team, the sight of his young athletes competing at an Olympic event on home soil represents the fulfilment of a dream he once considered impossible.

“Never in my life!” Sakho exclaimed when asked whether he had imagined such a moment. “In the beginning, we trained with almost nothing. I would never have imagined bringing young people to the Youth Olympics here in Senegal.”

His journey began decades earlier, when a kung fu film on a videotape introduced him to Chinese martial arts. “I was immediately fascinated,” he recalled.

Wushu soon became more than a sporting pursuit. It taught him to control his body, confront difficulties and find what he described as “inner peace.”

At 20, Sakho decided to devote himself to promoting the sport in Senegal, where football dominates the sporting landscape, and wushu has long struggled for recognition, reports Xinhua.

But enthusiasm could not provide a training hall, equipment, or a steady income. For more than a decade, he continued teaching despite limited resources, driven by his belief in the sport’s value to young people.

Then came an opportunity he had never expected: wushu would make its debut as an official medal sport at Dakar 2026.

Appointed coach of Senegal’s youth wushu team, Sakho began preparing a new generation of athletes for the biggest competition of their lives.

Among them were Mahib Amar and Woreye Ndiaye, both 16, who would eventually represent the host nation at the Games.

But reaching the Olympic stage required more than determination.

Unlike the forms of martial arts Sakho had spent years teaching, competitive wushu demands precise execution of standardised routines, with strict requirements governing technique, direction, difficulty, and movement.

With limited exposure to elite international competition, the Senegalese coach and his athletes faced a steep learning curve.

In April 2025, Sakho travelled to China for a training course organised by the International Wushu Federation, studying the third set of international competition routines.

Chinese coach Zheng Jutian, who met Sakho during the course, recalled that he was initially unfamiliar with some of the required movements. Their sessions focused on correcting techniques and explaining the finer details that could lead to deductions in international competition.

Sakho later returned to China with his athletes, including a trip to Tianjin for the World Junior Wushu Championships in March 2026, an important qualification event for the Dakar Games.

In August, he brought four young athletes back to Tianjin for nearly two months of intensive training at the Tianjin Huo Yuanjia Civil and Military School.

There, Chinese coaches Zhao Qingjian, a champion at the 2008 Beijing Wushu Tournament, and Wu Yanan worked with the Senegalese athletes on flexibility, physical conditioning and the precise execution of difficult movements.

“We started teaching them movement by movement,” Zhao recalled, describing how the athletes struggled with techniques such as a jumping kick followed by a split, which demands considerable flexibility.

The coaches also helped them select competition music, understand scoring requirements and become familiar with competition procedures.

Wu acknowledged that the athletes initially faced a considerable gap in technical ability. “At the beginning of the training, I found that the Senegalese athletes’ level was far below what I had expected,” he said.

But progress came through repetition and persistence. The athletes gradually gained confidence, while Sakho closely observed the Chinese coaches’ methods, hoping to apply what he learned back home. “The training in China benefited our athletes tremendously,” said El Hadji Ndiogou Gueye, president of the Senegalese Wushu Federation. “They improved in technique, physical fitness and discipline. Their ability to perform difficult movements also improved significantly.”

On November 1, years of preparation finally gave way to Olympic competition.

Ndiaye, who had participated in the athletes’ oath at the opening ceremony, took part in the women’s taijishan preliminary round, performing a fan routine that combined controlled movements with sudden bursts of power.

Speaking at a press conference that day, she offered a simple message to her fellow competitors: “Enjoy the competition, enjoy the moment.”

But her Olympic debut ended in disappointment. An injury sustained during competition forced her to withdraw from the remaining preliminary round the following day.

Her teammate Amar completed both the taijiquan and taijishan preliminary rounds in the men’s combined event but failed to finish among the top eight and advance to the final.

Despite missing out, the teenager believed his performance reflected the progress he had made. “We trained hard to get to this competition,” Amar said. “We went to China twice and finished our preparation with a final training camp in Guereo.”

“After two years of preparation, we had to give it everything we had and try to improve our scores to qualify,” he added.

Amar, who comes from the village of Bayakh in Senegal’s Thies region and began practicing wushu in 2020, said his performances had improved since the World Junior Championships.

His ambitions remain intact. “My dream is to become an Olympic champion,” he said, adding that he intends to continue training and preparing for future competitions.

For Sakho, the Games brought both pride and disappointment. “Amar has improved, and he will continue to improve. He has worked hard,” he said. “And Ndiaye got injured at the worst possible moment. Sport can be cruel.”

Wu, who also provided technical guidance to the Senegalese team during the Games as part of a Chinese assistance project, said the experience offered lessons beyond competition results.

While winning remains the goal, he said, “sport also teaches young people how to deal with failure, and what matters most is how they respond, what choices they make and whether they find the strength to continue.”

For Senegalese wushu, the significance of the Games extends beyond the performances of two young athletes.

According to Gueye, more than 10,000 people now practice wushu in Senegal, with over 400 clubs nationwide. Regional organisations have been established in 11 of the country’s 14 administrative regions. “We have fought for many years for wushu to become part of the Olympic family,” Gueye said.

He hopes the Games will leave a lasting legacy through better equipment, improved training opportunities and greater recognition for a sport that has struggled to establish itself in Senegal.

By November 2, the host nation’s wushu campaign had ended without either athlete reaching a final. But for Sakho, the experience was never solely about medals. “We go back to the club and start training again. That’s all,” he said.

After years of teaching martial arts with little material reward, the coach measures success in what the sport gives to his students.

“When I see these young people find direction in life and learn to stand tall through wushu, that is worth more than all the medals,” he said. “I’ll stay as long as they keep training.”

–IANS

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