RIO DE JANEIRO: Sometimes sporting success transcends the game. There are occasions when these moments turn into inspiring stories to preserve for posterity. Mohammed Abukhousa’s is such a narrative. He doesn’t have grounds to practice on. His father is blind. He has four sisters. His brother is no more.
Most others in the 23-year-old’s place would have been crushed. He was in crutches, gingerly walking towards his car. His 100m dash had just got over. He could not brush shoulders with the great Usain Bolt but the Palestinian was happy. The pain he had in his legs was bearable, but not the one inside.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to hold the lifeless body of a younger brother?” asked the sprinter, who tore the hamstrings in both legs. “He was just 13. Can you believe it? He died in the war. It’s not easy to hold your dead brother and then go train. I have done that. And I had to explain everything to my father who can’t see.” That was in 2012. “I have been struggling since then. My family too has been suffering.”
Abukhousa qualified for the heats with a timing of 10.82s, but could not do well because of the hamstring and limped to the finish line with the crowd cheering his every step. “I am very happy that I qualified (for the Olympics). My father is very happy. I can’t leave him behind because someone needs to take care of the family. But my father told me not to worry and asked me to go compete.”
If not for his father, Abukhousa wouldn’t have been here at the Olympics. “He can’t see, so we have to depend on some people who will look after him and my family. In Palestine, you don’t know what will happen tomorrow. He said to me, you just go. Don’t worry about me.”
Abukhousa, from Gaza Strip, laments the pitiful conditions back home and trained in Mauritius before the Olympics. “I practiced in Mauritius over the last one year or so. Nothing is good. There is no stadium. There are a lot of good athletes in Palestine but we cannot go out to compete. The airport is closed and some people cannot go out. We are very good at sports. But we don’t have the facilities.”
He struggles to keep his family alive. Abukhousa says: “I don’t have a job and can’t do anything. It is really frustrating. I am just training hard for them. I have been training for one year and I wanted to do something for my country.
“My only wish right now is to see my country free,” Abukhousa said, as he walked away.
