Our national team’s hammer throw champion Ashraf El-Seify is heading to the city of Rio de Janeiro to take part in the Olympic Games this year, which are now less than three months away. El-Seify is one of the champions who have achieved a wealth of titles, having won the World Junior Championships twice in a row in 2012 and 2014, and currently holding the world junior record in the hammer throw with a distance of 85.57m. El-Seify shares his story of success and sacrifice through the film “Olympic Dreams”, shown on the Qatar Olympic Committee’s social media channels
More than 10,000 athletes from 206 countries will converge on the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro to take part in the first Olympic Games held in South America. The number of TV viewers is expected to reach 4.8 billion from across the world, living the exciting atmosphere of the Olympics and taking pride in their favourite athletes, while the athletes seek to reach their utmost capabilities to showcase the best that human beings have to offer, within the true spirit of the Olympic movement.
Thanks to the great attention of veteran and expert coach Alexei Malyukov, El-Seify’s clear talent came to light, and it soon received recognition and admiration. Malyukov says: “In 2010 the head coach asked me to test El-Seify, and accordingly I supervised him in some training sessions, and after his first attempt I became certain that he had the potential to become a wonderful, strong athlete. At the time I promised the federation that El-Seify could throw the hammer beyond 80 metres, and I was not mistaken; El-Seify managed to throw 85 metres.” El-Seify, who lost his father when he was young, has a close relationship with coach Malyukov, a relationship that formed the cornerstone of El-Seify’s success in the hammer throw, as he says: I began training with coach Alexei Malyukov in 2010 when I started practising the hammer throw. Malyukov is not just a coach to me, but is like a spiritual father. I have learned many skills from him and every day I learn something new from his experience. He simply taught me the true meaning of the hammer throw and the correct technique for practising it, in addition to training.
The young hammer throw champion is one of three Aspire Academy graduates who have qualified for the Rio 2016 Olympics. He is joined by fellow academy graduates Mutaz Barshim, the high jumper, and Abubaker Haydar Abdalla,
the middle-distance runner. El-Seify praises the globally renowned Aspire Academy for the help it gave him, which resulted in his great progress as an athlete, thanking it and saying: “I began my journey at Aspire Academy in 2010 at a young age and learned a great deal from it. I matured as an athlete at this academy and developed my academic and athletic skills.” He added: “This academy is like the home in which I grew up; in it I acquired leadership qualities and learned how to deal with people in my life, as well as learning English.”
Under the supervision of coach Malyukov, who was coach of the Russian throws team at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, El-Seify’s strengths were reinforced; he won the gold medal at the 2012 Asian Junior Championships, held in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, and set a new world junior record with a distance of 85.57 metres, in addition to winning the World Junior Championships twice in a row, in 2012 in Barcelona and in 2014 in Eugene in the United States of America.
El-Seify spoke about his achievements, saying: “There is a saying that goes ‘the world smiles at you’, and when I won my first World Junior title in Barcelona, I truly felt that the whole world was smiling at me. I was overcome by a feeling I had never known before”
El-Seify’s success did not come without sacrifices, which the rising star is quick to say he is happy to have made: “I started training at a young age and sacrificed many things, like going out with my friends and staying up late. I also missed many social gatherings for the sake of this sport, but achieving success makes you feel like you haven’t made any sacrifices at all, it’s an amazing feeling
It is worth noting that El-Seify, aged 21, will take part in his first Olympic Games, with a great deal of experience behind him, after making history again at the 2015 World Indoor Athletics Championships, when he became the first athlete to represent Qatar in reaching the hammer throw final. At Rio 2016, El-Seify has an important goal in mind, saying of it: “My first participation in the Olympic Games carries real significance for me. I will give my utmost effort in Rio, because my goal is to make the Qatari people happy, whom I am greatly honoured to represent.”
