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Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali hosted a luncheon Monday (July 16th) in honour of the two athletes who will be representing Somalia in the London Olympic Games.

On July 7th, the Somali Olympic Committee chose runners Zamzam Mahmuud Farah and Mohamed Hassan Mohamed to represent Somalia in London. The Somali delegation left for London Tuesday morning.

"We are very pleased to be here today, having lunch together, and we are proud that Zamzam and Mohamed, along with their trainers, will take part in the London Olympics representing Somalia," Ali said on Monday. "I am optimistic that Mohamed and Zamzam will achieve honourable results, bringing back honour and medals to the country."

Ali presented the head of the Somali Olympic delegation with the country's flag, which will be raised at the Olympics.

"Somalia's participation in the Olympics is modest and closer to being symbolic rather than rising to challenge and competition," sports analyst Awais Ahmed told Sabahi.

In spite of that, the government and people of Somalia have shown support for the two Somali athletes. The farewell party for the athletes provides huge moral support for them, said Khadijo Aadan Dahir, vice president of the Somali Athletics Federation.

"The two athletes are going to the London Olympics with high morale and there is indeed hope that they will achieve better results," she told Sabahi. "They have been training intensively over the past six months, despite the extremely difficult conditions throughout the country."

Farah, a 400-meter-dash runner, said, "I am very happy to be representing my country in the London Olympics. This is the first time I will take part in the Olympics."

"Unlike previous years where Somalia came in last, we hope to reach the top and make our country proud," she told Sabahi. "We will do our best in the London Olympics to realise that dream and we have high hopes to win medals."

"Al-Shabaab wants to ban sports for both men and women in our country and they have killed our sports leaders," she said. "However, this will not stop us from playing sports because it is part of our culture that we love."

Al-Shabaab bans playing and watching sports in territory it controls. An al-Shabaab-attributed suicide attack in April killed Somali National Olympic Committee chairman Aden Haji Yabarow Wiish.