Training on the bullet-riddled streets of Somalia’s civil war-wracked capital city, Mohamed Hassan Mohamed and Zamzam Ali Farah have defied war and terrorism to make the London Olympics.
In Mogadishu, it is not just very difficult to be an athlete — it is life-threatening. There are armed militias, jumpy gunmen and stray bullets. Suicide bombers can strike at any time.
Somali sport has often been affected by the constant violence that has crippled the country for two decades, but it was rocked to its core this year when the heads of the national Olympic committee and soccer federation were killed in a bomb blast.
Photo: Reuters
And for middle and long-distance track athletes Mohamed and Farah, their everyday routine put them in daily danger.
Somalia has no working national sports stadium, just an abandoned old facility with no proper track. It forces athletes to run on the rubble-strewn roads — possibly the most dangerous in the world — where nervous government gunmen and terrorist militants roam.
“Imagine when you live in a country that hasn’t got a sports stadium,” said Farah, who will compete in the women’s 800m and 1,500m at London’s new Olympic Stadium — a stark contrast to where she has prepared. “We had nowhere to run and train except on the streets of Mogadishu at a time when the fighting was at its worst.”
“We still had to train and run, getting up very early in the morning, running past road blocks manned by armed militias. Sometimes the soldier on guard would mistake us for being suicide bombers or attackers, and order us to stop or they would shoot,” Farah said.
Sometimes they would also be detained for long periods by suspicious soldiers and abandon their training for the day. Sometimes it was too dangerous to go out at all.
The two runners are the troubled east African country’s only athletes at the London Games, but they said the risks were worth taking to realize their Olympic dreams.
“I really wish that I will win something because I have been training so hard,” Mohamed said.
He will run the 1,500m and 5,000m in London.
“We train in the morning and afternoon ... despite the fact that there are hardly any sporting facilities here,” he said.
SIBLING RIVALRY: Marc Marquez was locked in a duel with his little brother, falling behind at one point before recovering for his first season-opening victory since 2014 Six-time world champion Marc Marquez yesterday won the MotoGP season-opening Thailand Grand Prix to complete a dominant debut weekend at his new Ducati Lenovo Team, having also romped to Saturday’s sprint. The Spanish great took the 26-lap grand prix by 1.732 seconds for his 63rd MotoGP victory from younger brother Alex Marquez, who is still seeking a first checkered flag, with Francesco Bagnaia third to complete an all-Ducati podium. It completed a perfect weekend for Marc Marquez, who took pole position, the sprint victory and the grand prix win for a maximum 37 points to open the 22-leg 2025 campaign. He led from
Team Taiwan avoided missing the World Baseball Classic (WBC) for the first time by defeating Spain 6-3 in a do-or-die game in Taipei last night. After narrowly escaping a mercy-rule loss to Spain in the WBC Qualifiers opener on Friday last week, the home team — winner of last year's WBSC Premier12 title three months ago — got their revenge against the 2023 European champions at Taipei Dome. "It felt quite different from when we won the Premier12," Taiwan captain Chen Chieh-hsien (陳傑憲) said after the game, recalling the ups and downs the team has experienced over the past few days. Unlike in
LONG TIME COMING: With the addition of Marcus Smart, the Washington Wizards finally held a team to under 100 points, the last team this season to do so The Detroit Pistons on Monday won their seventh straight game in the NBA with in-form Cade Cunningham making 32 points and grabbing nine rebounds in a 106-97 win over the Los Angeles Clippers. The Pistons, who are in the playoff position, moved to 32-26, their best record at this stage of a season for 17 years. It was an all-round effort from Detroit with Tobias Harris adding 20 points and Jalen Duren making 19 rebounds along with his 12 points. It was a tight contest until Detroit pulled away late in the third quarter to tie their longest winning streak since the 2014-2015
AC Milan’s slender hopes of reaching next season’s UEFA Champions League took another hit on Thursday with a 2-1 defeat at Bologna which left them eight points from Serie A’s top four. Sergio Conceicao’s team sit eighth, some way behind fourth-placed Juventus after losing an entertaining contest at the Stadio Renato Dall’Ara, a match which was rescheduled from October last year due to torrential rain and flooding. Swathes of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy, much of which is fertile agricultural land, had been left under water following a massive autumn downpour. Dan Ndoye prodded home the decisive goal in the 82nd minute
RSS