He got into swimming after his mother encouraged him to pick up a sport to keep him healthy and where the athletes were not as prone to injuries compared to other disciplines.
Little did he know that he would become the first swimmer ever from his country to qualify for the Olympics. Mohammed Madouh created history for Kuwait when he made it to the 2008 Beijing Olympics and since then has never stopped competing, sticking to his philosophy of having fun every time he jumps in the pool.
Sport360° caught up with Madouh after he came sixth in the 50m freestyle race at the Asian Swimming Championships in Dubai last weekend.
The former Arizona State University swimmer, who mentioned his plans to move to Abu Dhabi soon to do his Masters, discusses what it’s like to be a swimmer from Kuwait.
You had a great race in the 50m free at the Asian Swimming Championships. Tell us a bit about your background…
I was born in 1987 in Kuwait. Moved to the US when I was nine years old. I graduated from Arizona State University. Swam for their team. And made the 2008 Olympics. And since then, I’m still swimming.
And what do you consider to be your greatest achievement so far?
Making it to the Olympics is my biggest achievement yet.
What are your main goals?
Swimming is just one of the greatest sports that you’ll ever be in. So I just want to keep swimming, have fun while I’m competing. My next competition I think will be in Istanbul, the World Short Course Championships.
Can you tell us a bit about your training?
At the beginning of the season, I do general training, which is normal aerobics. And then prior to competing I get into anaerobic training which is speed and quality training, including gym. To be more specific, we do nine trainings a week, which is the basic requirements. I’m training in Kuwait now.
And how has it been training in Kuwait after being in the US for so long?
It’s a whole lot of transformation. The transformation wasn’t very kind to me because the discipline and the training and the quality that I received was a lot different than Kuwait. And I really hope that we reach the quality that I hope for in the next couple of months.
Do you feel the move has affected your progress?
You know when I was in the US, I was part of what you called professional swimmers. I was the fourth-fastest swimmer in the history of my University and I was in the Hall of Fame because of the Olympics. And on top of that, I compete for Kuwait as well. I just hope for the best when it comes to competing. And I always think you have to have fun while you’re racing. There’s no need to feel nervous.
Do you do anything else now besides swimming?
Right now I’m currently employed at the Civil Aviation in Kuwait. And I have plans to enrol in a Masters Degree in Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. So hopefully you’ll be seeing a lot more of me.
Did you have any role models growing up in the sport?
Throughout the years, I can tell my college team was my role model because all of them had the same goal – to compete and have fun. And I’ve been living with that thought ever since I moved to Kuwait. Not to mention Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte and some sprinters are also great role models.
Just like you created history for Kuwait by becoming the first Olympic swimmer from there, this year Faye Sultan became the first female swimmer from your country to compete at the Games. How significant was that for Kuwait?
Faye is a very unique person because she had the motivation to train with us as a national team member. And in Kuwait we don’t favour female swimmers. But I respect her motivation and I admire her for keeping up with us, even though she’s a different level swimmer and we’re a little bit faster than her.
She had a training camp with us in Spain and you can say that I’m more like her big brother and I’ve been pushing her really, really hard to train harder. She did really well at the 2012 Olympics and hopefully we’ll see more of her in Rio 2016.
Speaking of Rio, do you think much progress can happen for Kuwait by then?
It’s a really difficult question to answer. If we keep the mental training up… training is really hard. Just the idea of turning up for practice is hard. Because our society doesn’t really support sports much. We do it just because there’s nothing else to do. It’s a bit of a bummer because it seems like we’re swimming for the unknown.
But as long as they take us to competitions like this one right here (Asian meet in Dubai), we have a chance to develop and evolve into really good swimmers. We had two swimmers in 2012, hopefully we can increase that number into four swimmers. That’s always been my goal, to have more team-mates rather than going to the Olympics by myself.
The Asian Championships will return to Dubai again for the next edition. Do you think having these kind of competitions in the region will help?
The thing about hosting a competition is most importantly the organisation. The way they organised this meet is like a whole different level of an Asian competition…which is really good. I understand it’s only the Asian Championships but the organisation has been amazing.
There are many elements for a competition to make an impact on the host country. There’s advertising for the competition, and the type of competition. If you’re hosting a GCC competition, maybe that won’t be popular, but if you’re hosting all Arabs, or Asians, that would be popular and can make a difference.
The Arab Games in Doha were pretty impressive atmosphere-wise, with big crowds. Did that somehow help motivate you to swim faster?
That was my second Arab Games, I got one silver and two bronzes in Doha. But I also competed in 2007 in Egypt. In that competition, my team-mates were my main motivation. They gave me the hope to compete with them. Mainly relays were our hope to get more medals. And in Doha, I thank my team-mates for getting those medals.
Do you have any other interests other than swimming?
You know I tried looking for other interests, I’m really not good at them. So swimming is the only thing I’m good at.
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