Mwamoyo Hamza

In this Olympic year, Mwamoyo Hamza says the favorite sporting event he’s covered was the 1984 Los Angeles Games. In an email sent from his Tanzanian homeland, Mwamoyo looks back fondly on those Olympics in Los Angeles: “The first time I came to the USA was for reporting the 1984 Summer Olympics. I was a strapping 24-years-old. After having lived in a country with limited information, I was surprised by the USA’s prosperity and freedom.”

Mwamoyo says his first trip to the USA helped inspire him to study in the United States. He graduated with double majors in Journalism and Mass Communication from Howard University in Washington, D.C. Mwamoyo has moved on to become chief of the VOA’s Swahili Service, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary with a ceremony in Washington. “It was a great feeling,” says Mwamoyo. “It was a great honor on behalf of all the good broadcasters who made Swahili Service what it is today.”

In addition to his chief duties, Mwamoyo also broadcasts sports in Swahili. It’s always interesting to get Mwamoyo’s take on the National Basketball Association Playoffs, since basketball is his favorite sport. He’s picking the Miami Heat to win this year’s NBA title.

Miami lost to the Dallas Mavericks, four games to two, in last season’s NBA Finals. Mwamoyo says he wasn’t surprised to see the Mavericks swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder, 4-0, in the first round. “All season long, they (the Mavericks) did not play like champions.”

Yaya Toure

Here’s a Sonny Side of Sports salute for Yaya Toure, the Ivorian and Manchester City football star who probably will be celebrating his 29th birthday next week by holding the English Premier League trophy.

The 2011 African Footballer of the Year scored both goals for Man City Sunday in a crucial 2-0 road victory over Newcastle United.

Yaya Toure scores his second goal against Newcastle

Toure put Man City in front in the 69th minute with a beautiful goal from just outside the box to the bottom of the right corner of the goal. And then in the 89th minute, the rugged midfielder sealed the victory with another goal.

With the triumph, Manchester City is on the verge of its first English Premier League title since 1968. Man City is level on points, with 86, with local rival Manchester United. But Man City has the edge on goal difference and it’s expected to wrap up the league title when it plays at home against struggling Queens Park Rangers in its final match May 13th.

Man City’s Italian manager, Roberto Mancini, is delighted with his team’s victory over Newcastle and he describes Yaya Toure as a fantastic player. Yaya’s older brother, 31-year-old Kolo, also plays for Man City, and the Toure brothers make regular appearances for Ivory Coast’s national team, currently top-ranked in Africa.

I’ve been waving the Kenyan flag a lot lately. Last week, I waved it for Wesley Korir and Sharon Cherop, who won the men’s and women’s titles at the Boston Marathon. In this video, I wave it again for Kenyan athletes Wilson Kipsang and Mary Keitany, who won the men’s and women’s races at the London Marathon.

With their victories in the British capital, Kipsang and Keitany are good bets to make Kenya’s 2012 Olympic team. The Kenyans will be bidding to win gold medals in both the men’s and women’s Olympic marathons in London.

In successfully defending her London title, Keitany set a new African record of 2:18:37, breaking the mark of Kenyan countrywoman Catherine Ndereba, a silver medalist in the women’s marathon at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Kipsang, meanwhile, is hoping to become the second Kenyan to win Olympic gold in the men’s marathon. The late Sammy Wanjiru, the subject of a recent Sports Illustrated article, set an Olympic record of 2:06:32 at the Beijing Games.

Also in the video above, we see and hear from Caster Semenya, the South African 800 meter runner who will be competing in her first Olympics in London. The 21-year-old Semenya won a silver medal at last year’s world championships in South Korea and a gold medal at the 2009 world championships in Germany. She says her big goal this year is to win her first Olympic gold medal in London.

I’m looking forward to attending my first Olympics in London in late July. The British capital will welcome hundreds of thousands of Olympic fans and media, as it becomes the first city to host the modern Olympics three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.

Britain's famous Foot Guards help celebrate the 100-day countdown to the Olympics

Sebastian Coe, the chairman of the London Games Organizing Committee, won gold medals for Britain in the 1,500 meters at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. He says the 100-day countdown to the Games, marked on April 18th, has special meaning for fans and organizers.

“It signifies, first of all, there is still an extraordinary amount of work to do, but I think 100 days, it means something to people,” says the 55-year-old Coe. “When you’re talking about seven years, six years, five years, four years, but actually when you’re really talking about days, and we’re talking 12 Wednesdays or something, I mean it really is, it’s very close.”

The Olympic Stadium will be the centerpiece of the London Games

Coe says his experience as an Olympic athlete has helped him in organizing the massive sports festival. “I think it’s been very helpful to come to the project and see it through the eyes of a competitor,” says Coe. “It does make me redouble, I guess, my efforts.”

Sebastian Coe adds that London itself has changed a lot since it last hosted the Olympics 64 years ago. “London is different … the thought that we are celebrating and hosting 200 nations, countries that actually, most of them have very vibrant and very healthy communities here, makes London a very different city.”

Opening ceremonies for the London Games are July 27th and they will run through August 12th.

Rod Thomas (August 2, 1947 - April 5, 2012)

I found out about the death of Rod Thomas, my friend and Voice of America colleague, while at the beach in my birth state of South Carolina. I knew Rod had been seriously ill for several months, but his passing, on April 5 at age 64, was still a jolt. “Time passes,” said another friend, Angelo Dundee, the Hall of Fame boxing trainer who died February 1 at age 90. “Time goes bye-bye.”

The beach is a good place to ponder friendship and the passing of time. I traveled to South Carolina to visit my elderly parents, who live a short distance from the beach but can no longer get to it because of old age and mobility issues. I remembered swimming in the Atlantic as a boy and being caught in a powerful undertow, feeling helpless as the current swept me out. My father was a college football halfback and in his prime was quick and fast. He sprinted from his beach chair, dove into the water and rescued me. Now, at almost 83, he has difficulty getting up from a chair and walking.

Walking barefoot in the sand, I remembered many of my good times with Rod. He was a boxing fan and he enjoyed my telephone chats with Angelo, conversations we often broadcast on my show. “You know, Angelo is the kind of guy I’d like sitting next to me at a bar,” said Rod. “I could listen to his stories for hours.”

Rod & Sonny enjoy smoked bat in Accra

Rod was also a wonderful storyteller. I sat next to him at bars and heard a few stories, but my colleagues and I heard most gathered around his office cubicle. Stories about his children and grandchildren; stories about being in the Army; stories about his own football-playing days; stories about being served smoked bat in Accra, Ghana.

Rod traveled with me to Ghana in 2001 and on several other sports trips, always providing excellent technical and emotional support. I’ll remember the laughs and jokes, especially when it seemed like things were falling apart. When our van broke down between Accra and Kumasi and the driver did repairs deep in the Ghanaian “tall grass,” as my friend Shaka Ssali likes to say, Rod lit a cigar and started telling stories by the side of the road. I felt a certain comfort in the cigar smoke. My father used to be a big cigar smoker. He served in Vietnam in the U.S. Navy in the early 1970s and I remember after he was gone for awhile, I walked through our front door and smelled cigar smoke. I knew immediately, “Dad is home.”

Like smoke in the air and like sand between your toes, time passes. Time goes bye-bye.

Libya is once again expected to send a small team to this year’s Olympics in London. Eight Libyans participated at Athens 2004 and seven at Beijing 2008. Check out this video in which I profile three Libyan Olympic hopefuls.

The Libyans sent only one athlete to the country’s first Olympics in Tokyo in 1964. And only one Libyan competed at the 1968 Games in Mexico City.

Libyan Olympic officials say they hope to send at least nine athletes to London. They add if they can’t get on the Olympic medals table for the first time at London 2012, they hope to do so at Rio de Janeiro 2016.

Mohamed Khouaja, the national record holder at 200 meters and 400 meters, says the Libyan Olympic team in London will be remembering those who died last year in the country’s revolution. “God willing, we will do our best for Libya,” says the 24-year-old Khouaja, “just as the martyrs did and sacrificed their lives for Libya and this blessed revolution. So, we also hope to give something to them and to our people.”

Louisville center Gorgui Dieng takes a shot

Senegalese center Gorgui Dieng (pronounced Gore-jee Jeng) came to the United States three years ago as a tall, skinny teenager who spoke little English. He played one year of high school basketball at Huntington Prep in West Virginia, where he averaged 15 points, 13 rebounds and seven blocks a game. Several American colleges and universities recruited the 2.11 meter (6 feet 11 inches) tall Dieng, with Coach Rick Pitino and The Cardinals of Louisville getting the Senegalese player to commit to their school.

Dieng told Coach Pitino he hoped to play professionally in the National Basketball Association. Pitino told Dieng he needed to improve his defense and his conditioning for his NBA dreams to come true. Since arriving in the USA, Dieng has worked on

Gorgui Deng is one of college basketball's best shot blockers (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

 getting stronger, and put on nearly 23 kilograms (50 pounds). He now weighs 106 kilograms (235 pounds), and in his words, Coach Pitino “changed my whole mentality to play defense.”

Dieng’s defense has helped lead Louisville to The Final Four in the U.S. men’s college basketball championship tournament. He’s blocked 124 shots this season – and he matched a Louisville tournament record March 22 with seven blocks in a game in a 57-44 ”Sweet 16″ victory over top-seeded Michigan State. Overall this season, Dieng is averaging about nine points, nine rebounds and three blocks a game.

On Saturday, the 22-year-old Dieng made a crucial block with less than a minute left in the game, helping preserve Louisville’s lead in a 72-68 victory over Florida. Gorgui Dieng’s American odyssey will now take him to New Orleans, Louisiana, where The Final Four semifinal games will be played March 31. Scouts have described Dieng as a good NBA prospect because of his defense, but whose offensive skills are still underdeveloped.

Even so, he’s shown tremendous improvement in a short period of time, and verbally, Gorgui Dieng now speaks five languages, the latest of which is English.

Cherry blossoms near the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival officially opens this week here in Washington, “celebrating 100 years of the gift of trees” from Tokyo. The Japanese sent more than 3,000 cherry trees to Washington in March 1912, helping create the U.S. capital city’s greatest springtime celebration.

This year’s gala centennial of the first planting has been expanded to five weeks and it includes activities such as Samurai cinema, Japanese tea parties, a kite festival as well as several sporting events, including rugby and soccer tournaments and the Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run on April 1.

Ralph & Sonny at finish line of 1995 Cherry Blossom

I’m looking forward to testing my speed and endurance in “The Runner’s Rite of Spring” after a winter of early morning runs in sometimes sub-freezing temperatures. I’ve run the Cherry Blossom several times, including 1995, when my younger brother, Ralph, nipped me at the finish line.

The Cherry Blossom often attracts top runners who use the race as a tune-up for the Boston Marathon, which will be held for the 116th time on April 16.

Former Boston Marathon champions Bill Rodgers and

Joan Benoit Samuelson

Joan Benoit Samuelson will conduct pre-race clinics before the Cherry Blossom in Washington. Rodgers won four Boston Marathon titles during his great career, helping him earn the nickname, “Boston Billy.” And Samuelson won two Boston Marathon women’s titles, but perhaps is best known for winning the gold medal at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, the year the women’s marathon was introduced.

On November 7, 1991, Magic Johnson announced at an emotional news conference he was HIV-positive, shocking coaches, teammates and sports fans all over the world. In a new ESPN Films documentary, “The Announcement,” his Los Angeles Lakers teammate James Worthy, who would later join Magic in the Basketball Hall of Fame, said, “I just went numb.”

The numbness Worthy and others felt would fade as Magic became a big advocate for those living with HIV/AIDS. The film looks at Magic’s life since he made the announcement and how things have changed in the HIV/AIDS epidemic over the past 20 years.

At a red carpet premiere of the movie in Los Angeles, Johnson was asked what people can take way from the film. “I want them to take

Magic Johnson

 away that I never gave up and I went public because I wanted to educate people, to save people’s lives,” said Magic. “Sometimes, when you make a mistake it hurts people and those people who love you – it hurts them. I want people to take away that when you are in a position to help people, that is what you should do and that is what I tried to do.”

Since his playing days ended, he has helped people through his Magic Johnson Foundation, which raises money for community-based organizations focused on HIV/AIDS education and prevention. The 52-year-old Johnson has also become a successful businessman in a variety of ventures. In one of his most recent ones, announced in February, Magic said he was launching a 24-hour cable television network targeted at African-Americans.