Oussama Mellouli, one of the best American-trained swimmers never to swim for the U.S., won a gold medal for Tunisia in the men’s Olympic 10-kilometer open-water swim. At the 2008 Games, Mellouli won gold in the 1,500-meter event. According to his official Olympic biography, that medal made Mellouli the first African male to win an individual Olympic swimming gold medal. His medal Friday represented only the third gold medal ever for Tunisia, whose total medal haul of three at the London Games is a record for the country.
Oussama Mellouli was born on 16 Feburary, 1984. He is a Tunisian freestyle and individual medley swimmer and is among the world’s leading athletes at distance ranging from 200m to 1500m. Mellouli left his home country Tunisia at the age of 15 to study in France, before moving on to the University of Southern California to further his studies and his swimming career with coach Dave Salo and the USC Trojans, with whom he enjoyed considerable success. His first taste of major international success came at the 2003 World Championships in Barcelona, where he earned a bronze medal in the 400m IM. In 2004 he made his first Olympic appearance in Athens, and while he did not medal, he broke African records in the 400 ml IM final (finishing fourth) and in both his heat and the semi-final of the 200m IM. Later in the year he won his first major international gold medal in the 400 m IM at the Indianapolis World Short Course.
When we are thinking of the Beijing Olympic Games for swimming, we will think about Michael Phelps, the outstanding American swimmer famoused for his most decorated Olympian of all time, with a total of 22 medals. USA has been famous for its outstanding atheletes. It is excellent at not only the swimming field, but also in tracking field. In opposite, when we think of African athelets, we think they are only good at marathon, because we always imagine them running on the wild areas. Obviously, what we thought is absolutely stereotypes. Oussama, the best example, can prove that Tunisia has someone can just as good as the Americans.
Of course, there are many other people like Ossama Mellouli that make Tunisia proud. Claudia Cardinale, the actress from the movie Once Upon a Time in the West , was an outstanding actress in Italy. Tarak Ben Ammar is an international movie producer and distributor, He is the owner of French production and distribution company Quinta Communications. He is famous in taking interest in artistic movies, especially when they are related to Mediterranean culture or require North African settings during shooting. His credits include the Franco Zeffirelli film adaptation of La Traviata. They show us that the success never just belong to the people from developed countries.
After the whole sememster study about Africa, I totally changed my perspective on it. Before, Africa is so far away from me that I could only learn everything about it from the media medium. Yet, all the media shows is the proverty, disease,etc. To me, Africa was the place like hell. This class made me feel that I was so ignorant. Africa is just like the rest of the continent. The people can do as well as the rest as well. Stereotypes and rumors should stop. Media should stop making Africa look weak in order to make themselves look stronger, because Africa is not weak. Every single country of the Africa is not weak either! So does Tunisia!
Reference:
“CHOOSE YOUR COUNTRY.” OUSSAMA MELLOULI. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2014. <http://www.arenausa.com/athletes/oussama-mellouli_us_0_4_900.html>.
“Famous People Born in Tunisia…” Tunisia Holidays, Tunisian Life and Discussion : Tunisia.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2014. <http://www.tunisia.com/threads/famous-people-born-in-tunisia.2251/>.
“No. 5 Women, No. 8 Men At Texas Invitational.” Ous Mellouli Bio. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2014. <http://www.usctrojans.com/sports/m-swim/mtt/mellouli_ous00.html>.
“U.S.-Trained Tunisian Takes Gold in Open-Water Swim.” The Daily Fix RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2014. <http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2012/08/10/u-s-trained-tunisian-takes-gold-in-open-water-swim/>.