Eritreans were thrilled to have their country represented by Shannon-Ogbani Abeda, a young Eritrean-Canadian skier, at the XXIII Winter Olympics Games in Pyeong Chang, South Korea, in 2018.

As you recall, Zeresenai Tadesse was the first Eritrean who represented Eritrea in the Summer Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, in Athens, Greece in 2004.

The research of Professor Alessandro Volterra, Professor of African History and Institutions at the University of Roma Tre, Italy, and Director of the Centre for Somali studies, shows that there were two Eritreans, Mareg Mengesha (age 24) and Tecle Redda (age 23), who participated in the 1924 Paris Olympics. The two Eritreans run for Italy in the 10,000meters. The article entitled "Eritreans at the Paris Olympics, 1924, is being published in the upcoming publication of the 2016 Proceedings of International Conference of Eritrean Studies.

Above: From the index of the official records of the 1924 Paris Olympics.

The picture above is from Prof. A. Volterra's upcoming article.

The picture is from Marco Martini's"article:

"Gli ascari d'Eritrea nelle gare di atletica organizzate dagli italiani

Mareg Mengesha (left) and Tecle Redda (right)