Tunisia low in numbers and without Hafnaoui, Jabeur

Tunisia will send its smallest delegation for two decades to the Paris Games with the North African country's two best known elite athletes, swimming champion Ahmed Hafnaoui and tennis star Ons Jabeur, both absent because of health issues.

Tunisian Olympic chief Mehrez Boussiane said the limited participation - 26 athletes qualified for Paris compared to the team of 63 for Tokyo - was down to financial difficulties as well as tougher qualification pathways.

"In some sports it is no longer enough to be a continental champion to qualify," the Tunisian Olympic Committee president told Reuters in an interview.

"So you find, for example, that in judo, where we used to qualify at least four athletes, we have a single athlete participating.

"Certainly, the economic and financial difficulties experienced by the country, like the rest of the world, have cast a shadow on the sports sector.

"That is reflected in the programmes of different federations in many specialties, as they find themselves unable to provide adequate and high-quality training for our athletes to enable them to develop their technical levels, in addition to infrastructure problems."

While Jabeur, who competed at the last three Olympics, said in June she would skip Paris because of knee issues, the reason for Hafnaoui's absence is less clear.

The 21-year-old stunned the swimming world by winning the 400 metres freestyle in Tokyo as a teenager and backed that up by winning the 800 and 1,500 double at last year's world championships in Fukuoka.

After a miserable showing at this year's worlds in Qatar, however, there were reports that Hafnaoui was struggling with an unspecified injury as well as mental health issues.

Boussiane said his absence was injury-related and