South Sudan hopes to send athletes to Rio 2016 Olympics

South Sudan plans to send more than ten athletes to the Rio De Janeiro Olympic Games, the country' s athletics officials said on Thursday.

Lt. General Wilson Deng Kuoirot, the President of South Sudan Olympic committee said that 14 athletes will have to first participate in the pre-Olympics African athletics championship in South Africa on June 22-28.

"We are left with 63 days as of today. There is need for us to prepare ourselves as early as possible, South Sudan is going to participate in athletics only and not everybody in athletics will go there because there are standards and that' s why the African Union is organizing a competition in Durban, South Africa in which our athletes will go from here," Kuoirot told journalists in Juba.

"We have entry standards like in 100 meters for women if you get 11.32 seconds, for men 10.16 seconds. If our athletes earn these then they will qualify for the games. It' s upon us to work hard to attain those standards," he said.

The country' s two qualified Olympians are Guor Marial, who competed as an independent Olympic athlete at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and Margret Rumat Rumar, who competed as an independent Olympic athlete at the 2014 summer youth Olympics.

"If the 14 athletes don' t qualify then our two Olympians will go to the Rio Olympic games," Kuoirot disclosed.

The Secretary General of the South Sudan Athletics Federation Jim Long Rumbek said the athletes have undergone intensive preparations and trials for the Olympic Games.

"We have internal trials here and its encouraging. We took our athletes to Tanzania recently and we won a bronze medal. We are again going to try them in South Africa which matches the Rio standards and before they go for the final games we shall put them in closed camp in a neighbouring country," Long revealed.

He said they have athletes in short distance from 400 meters, 800 meters and long distance athletes in 5,000 meters. Endit