By Kei Emmanuel Duku<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
South Sudan\u2019s historic basketball team received a hero\u2019s welcome upon their return from the Paris 2024 Olympics.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Thousands of jubilant fans lined the streets of Juba to greet the team, with Vice President Mama Rebecca Nayandeng among those present.<\/p>\n Speaking at Nimra Talanta Basket Court Stadium, South Sudan Basketball Federation President Loul Deng thanked fans and stakeholders for their unwavering support. He attributed the team\u2019s success to hard work, commitment, and the growing fan base.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people didn\u2019t believe in us before, but because of what we are now doing, they have seen potential,\u201d Deng said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we started our games in Kenya, we had huge fans who turned up to cheer us, and that\u2019s what gave us the courage as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite exiting the competition after the group stage, South Sudan made history by becoming the first African nation to win a game at the Olympics.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have made history,\u201d Deng said. \u201cWe are the first team to make it to the World Cup and Olympics, the first to win its Olympic debut, and the first to move from 100 to the top 20 ranking in the world in less than three and a half years.\u201d<\/p>\n Team captain Kuany Kuany expressed gratitude for the fans\u2019 support and acknowledged the contributions of President Salva Kiir and Loul Deng.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I look back when Deng told me four years later, we will be at the Olympics and we will be welcome back like heroes, I told him that won\u2019t happen at all,\u201d Kuany said. \u201cBut through his vision and perseverance, South Sudan is now seen all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Nuni Omot added, \u201cYou have been amazing to us. We went from unknown to known, and globally people didn\u2019t know where South Sudan was. This would not have been possible without your support as fans.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Kei Emmanuel Duku South Sudan\u2019s historic basketball team received a hero\u2019s welcome upon their return from the Paris 2024 Olympics. Thousands of jubilant fans lined the streets of Juba to greet the team, with Vice President Mama Rebecca Nayandeng among those present. Speaking at Nimra Talanta Basket Court[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":27474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-news","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/South-Sudan-Basketball-Team-holding-the-National-Flag-while-still-in-Paris.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27475,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27473\/revisions\/27475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}