Didier Drogba’s mother is preparing traditional west African food for a group of 60 traveling Ivory Coast fans at the Africa Cup of Nations.
Clotilde Drogba works in a makeshift kitchen at a dusty stadium on the outskirts of Malabo preparing Ivorian dishes such as chicken and fish with rice, plantains, potatoes and spicy sauces.
“Everyone has their thing and what they like to do,” Clotilde Drogba said after preparing lunch on Monday. “This is what I like to do — be helpful to people. I would support my son doing anything, whether he was famous or not. This isn’t about my son, it’s about supporting my country.”
Clotilde Drogba also prepared food for supporters at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
Favorites Ivory Coast, who have already qualified for the quarter-finals, played Angola in their final Group B match on Monday. While Didier Drogba and the rest of the Ivory Coast squad prepared for the match in a luxury hotel outside town, Clotilde sat on a bench in the dirt-floor kitchen chopping raw chicken with a cleaver as flies buzzed round the fresh meat.
Metal pots and pans containing bananas, onions, peanuts and tomatoes were scattered around, while portable gas hobs were used for cooking the food.
At first, Clotilde Drogba was shy about being interviewed, insisting she needed time to wash her hands and clean up.
“The mother of Drogba cannot be seen like this,” she protested.
A coach-load of supporters wearing the orange of Ivory Coast turned up soon after and took their places at plastic picnic tables. A gazebo provided shade from the fierce sun.
“The best moment is when you make a good meal and people are satisfied, but it’s even better when Didier scores and the team wins,” Clotilde Drogba said, sitting down for a rest after helping the handful of female kitchen workers serve the food.
Clotilde Drogba said she caught Ivory Coast’s opening two victories on a screen at the modest stadium where she is working, but added that she hoped to watch the semi-final in the stadium in Bata if her son and his teammates make it that far.
Unfortunately, Didier Drogba himself will miss out on the home cooking.
“The best food is what mom makes, but Didier has to eat at the hotel, which is normal. He has to eat with the team — these are the rules and I respect that,” she said.
Before her son became a star player in France, Clotilde Drogba said she was complimented on her son’s powerful physique.
“In France, they say you have to give children lots of soup so they will grow up strong,” she said. “Didier was so big they always said I must have given him lots of soup. Didier’s favorite was always sweet puree of plantain.”
It was also no surprise to mom that her son turned into a world-class player.
“I was a fan of Franz Beckenbauer when I was pregnant with Didier and I wanted him to be a big footballer like that — and God made it happen,” she said.
Even without mom’s cooking, Clotilde Drogba is confident she will see her son finally lift the Africa Cup of Nations.
“The team plays very well and it’s my wish that they win the cup,” she said.
Ivory Coast fan Euloge Ngbesso was enjoying a bowl of rice and chicken as Clotilde Drogba helped clean up the dishes, before posing for a seemingly interminable round of photographs with supporters.
“She’s a good woman,” Ngbesso said. “She’s like a mother to the supporters here. She’s very open and people respect her for who she is, not just because she’s Didier Drogba’s mom.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier