Talk:Samia Yusuf Omar

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There are some contradictions about this athlete. Xinhua spells her name "Samiyo Yusuf", describes her as being in her early 20s, and says she'll be competing in the 400m and the 800m. The BBC spells her name "Samiya Yuusf", describes her as being 16, and says she'll be competing the 200m. Both the BBC and Xinhua appear to have interviewed her, although the BBC's interview appears to have been more focused on her, rather than on Somalia's Olympic delegation as a whole. Can anyone confirm her age, the "official" spelling of her name, and the event(s) she'll be participating in? Aridd (talk) 12:15, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I am a good friend of hers and the author of the al Jazeera article. Her birthday is April 30, 1991 and her passport says Samiyo while she refers to herself as Samia. Although the article does not specify it, she actually moved to Addis in October 2010 (as I helped her arrange logistics) and if you read the article closely, the 23 seconds flat refers to an Ethiopian athlete, NOT Samia. It also says that she MET with Eshetu, the Ethiopian coach. However, after the article came out, she began training with the Djibouti team instead. (unsigned comment by User:89.211.49.82)


 * Thank you for pointing this out. The user who added the information seems to have been a little hasty in his/her reading of the article... Would you happen to have a source indicating that Samia Omar is now training with the Djibouti team, so that the information can be added to Wikipedia? Aridd (talk) 14:12, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, thanks for the explanation. If you are indeed the author of that article, please also consider joining the website. The Horn of Africa WikiProjects, in particular, could use a neutral professional with some knowledge on the area. Middayexpress (talk) 18:51, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * A slight correction to the above: The article indeed does not attribute the 23 seconds running time to Samia. However, it does indicate that she was referred for training to the Ethiopian Olympian Eshetu Tura by the Somali coach Jama Aden and the runner Mohamed Suleiman: "In late April 2011, Samia meets with Eshetu Tura, a former Ethiopian Olympian. He had been suggested by two Somalis developing the sports program in Qatar: Coach Jama Aden - a heavyweight in the track world who put Sudanese male runners on the map - and Mohamed Suleiman, Qatar's first Olympic medalist[...] After much discussion, Tura finally agrees to consider allowing her to do endurance training three times a week with his men's and women's long distance teams outside the city." Middayexpress (talk) 19:08, 3 August 2011 (UTC)