Bayan Jumah swimming to satisfy and lift Syria at Rio 2016

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  • Bayan (r) holding her flag with pride.

    A world championship can mean many different things to people and while representing your home country on such a huge platform is an honour for any athlete, some have an extra reason to draw pride and motivation from raising their nation’s flag at a global meet.

    Bayan Jumah, a 21-year-old swimmer from Syria, is trying to qualify to her second Olympic Games in efforts to bring some joy to her war-torn country.

    Bayan in action in 2012.

    Jumah is from Aleppo but moved to Damascus to attend university and train to become a professional swimmer.

    Kazan will be her third Worlds participation and she hopes to clock an Olympic standard qualifying time to book a ticket to Rio next year.

    “It is very important for me to qualify to Rio as I consider myself a warrior, like the brave souls fighting back home, but my job is a swimmer instead,” Jumah told Sport360 ahead of her first race, the 100m freestyle scheduled for Thursday.  

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    “So raising the Syrian flag or hearing the Syrian national anthem brings me so much pride and like any Syrian man or woman, I dream that peace would return to my country one day.”

    Jumah is the only female swimmer at that level in Syria so she trains with the men’s team while in Damascus.

    “This will be my third World Championships but I feel like I am a much better swimmer now than before and that the experience I got from my previous participations has helped me a lot improve as a competitor,” she says. “My time is very close to the Rio qualification standard and I’m very hopeful in making it.”

    Meanwhile, Ahmed Gebrel is hoping to become the first Palestinian swimmer to reach two Olympics as he targets a qualifying time in the 200m and 400m freestyle in Russia this week.  

    Gebrel, 24, was awarded an Olympic scholarship back in 2012 to train at the Centre d’Alt Rendiment in Barcelona in preparation for the London Games and he has been based in the Spanish city every since.

    Born to a Palestinian father and Egyptian mother, Gebrel leads a three-swimmer strong squad at Worlds in Kazan.

    “The feeling when I represent my country won’t be compared with anything else. All what I think about is to represent Palestine in the best way,” he says.

    “After London my scholarship was renewed for four years to prepare for the Olympic games in Rio 2016. Me as a Palestinian swimmer I want to be the first swimmer in Palestine who participates in two Olympic Games. That motivates me a lot and I’m always putting it as my goal. I’m ready for the Worlds and focusing on my practices.”

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