So on the day of the opening ceremony, and following on from our previous posts about the Games, we felt we had to add one last feature on the Olympics before it began. Looking at a list of competing nations we found ourselves asking questions such as where is Kyrgyzstan? Which country has the worst football team in the world? And that age old query, in which state is Prince Phillip worshipped as a God? Here’s ABL’s guide to the lesser-known nations competing from tomorrow.
Andorra
Nestled between France and Spain, the French President acts as Co-Prince of this tiny state, where every able-bodied man between 21 and 60 is required to own a rifle to defend the country.
Angola
Former Portuguese colony, oil-rich Angola had the fastest growing GDP in the world between 2001-2010 and their contestant, Leila Lopes, won the Miss Universe competition in 2011.
Aruba
Dutch-speaking Aruba has the highest GDP in the Caribbean and its citizens are officially citizens of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, giving them EU citizenship.
Belize
The Queen of Belize celebrated her Diamond Jubilee this year, in her hometown 5000 miles away, London. Home to the famous “Blue Hole”, a 202-metre-deep submerged vertical cave.
Burkina Faso
With a booming Gold mining industry, Burkina Faso also boasts what is possibly the world’s best-named capital city, Ouagadougou.
Gambia
The smallest country in mainland Africa, 23% of its economy is based on the cultivation of nuts.
Guam
Hypocritically, a colony of the US in the Pacific Ocean, Guam is one of the territories listed by the UN as in need of decolonisation. The US Military is the second largest wealth generator.
Kyrgyzstan
The Kyrgyz language is the only language to have been officially written in the Arabic, Latin and Cyrillic alphabets over the course of its history. It is also statistically the world capital of “bride-kidnapping” where men steal not only the hearts of their fiancées but their fiancées themselves from their fathers.
Lichtenstein
The highest GDP per capita, the second lowest unemployment rate, and what is commonly regarded as the worst football team in the world, Liechtenstein did in fact once draw against Portugal and beat Latvia prompting the resignation of the Latvian coach.
Marshall Islands
An archipelago of tiny islands in the Pacific, this ocean state has at points in its history been owned by the Spanish, the Germans, the Japanese and the Americans.
Nauru
The smallest republic in the world, Nauru is a single island in the Pacific, covering just over 8 square miles. Despite its tiny size there are 8 football teams on the island.
St Vincent & The Grenadines
Another Caribbean nation with Queen Elizabeth as head of state, over the course of 2011, 55% of the country’s exports consisted of inflatable pleasure craft.
American Samoa
Originally an American Naval Base, astronauts from the Apollo missions landed in the sea near American Samoa and were flown to the capital Pago Pago by helicopter.
San Marino
Officially the oldest, surviving state in the world having been founded in 305AD and with the oldest constitution in the world, dating from 1600, why has no one ever heard of (except English football fans) this tiny Italian microstate?
Swaziland
A landlocked country in southern African, the King of Swaziland, Mswati III, is Africa’s last absolute monarch and currently has 14 wives.
Tuvalu
With only 13,000 Tuvaluan speakers worldwide, the country holds an island-wide sports day on 1st October every year to celebrate independence.
Vanuatu
This fascinating country not only boasts a national anthem entitled ”Yumi, Yumi, Yumi”, although sadly this is not the 1968 Ohio Express track of the same name, but it also is home to a religious cult that worships Prince Phillip the Duke of Edinburgh as a living God.
