WAR DISRUPTS, BUT DOES NOT DETER, LEBANESE PRODIGY
by Pirate Irwin

Agence France Presse — English
December 5, 2006 Tuesday 8:27 AM GMT

Four years ago renowned American athletics coach John Smith tipped
Lebanese sprinter Gretta Taslakian as a future star if carefully
nurtured.

Four years on a mixture of personal misfortune and war has prevented
it from happening.

She may be just 21 but the four years since Smith spotted her on the
training track at the 2002 Busan Games have not been kind to Taslakian,
whose descendants were Armenian and fled to Lebanon during the 1915-17
genocide by the Turks.

Now her generation are discovering what it is like to be bombarded
having come through the 34-day war between Israel and Lebanon-based
Hezbollah in July which left a huge swathe of Lebanon destroyed and
thousands dead.

"We were preparing for the Asian Games this summer and then the
war started in July," said Taslakian, who is one of a five-strong
Lebanese team here for the Asian Games athletics which gets underway
on Thursday.

"What happened was very dramatic in Lebanon so we were not in the
right frame of mind to train for this big event.

"Because of the war the Lebanese championships were cancelled so the
Lebanese Federation sent us (with the help of governing body the IAAF)
to Singapore where we stayed for three months and we worked on the
technical rather than the physical areas."

Taslakian, national recordholder in the 100, 200 and 400m,
is realistic about her chances of success at the Games given her
disrupted preparation.

Her ultimate goal is for an emotional triumph next year at the Asian
Championships in Lebanon.

"The Asian Games would be a fantastic preparation for the Asian
Championships in Lebanon next year," said Taslakian, whose father
inspired her to take the sport up aged 15.

"I cannot guess what my result will be here as I have not competed
for a long time but I aim to beat my personal best in the 200m."

Things looked distinctly rosier not only for Lebanon but also for
Taslakian two years ago as she went to the Athens Olympics and was
not disgraced while running a personal best in the 200.

She was rewarded by the IAAF with a nine-month scholarship to train
in Cologne, Germany, with higher class facilities than she could ever
hope for back home. But it didn’t go as planned.

"It was originally a dream come true," she said.

"I tried to make the most of my good fortune but I tore a calf muscle
and couldn’t do what I had in mind.

"The good side was that when I was fit I was able to compete with
high class athletes but on the down side I didn’t get the attention
of the coaches because they prefer to focus on the star athletes.

"So I felt very alone without my family and friends," added Taslakian.