(Baytunya) To prepare for the Paris Olympics, Palestinian boxer Wassim Abou Sal follows instructions sent by text message from his Cairo-based coach, who is prevented from training his foal in person due to Israeli movement restrictions.
At 20, Wassim Abou Sal is preparing to become the first Palestinian boxer to compete in the Olympics after receiving an invitation and is already imagining winning the first ever Palestinian medal.
“It’s been my dream since I was 10,” he tells AFP in his gym in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank. “Every day I woke up wondering how to get to the Olympics.”
Although he did not qualify for the Paris Games, Wassim Abou Sal received an invitation from the IOC, so that all countries would be represented.
In the lightweight category (-63 kg), he will take part in his first Olympic fight on July 28, after training partly carried out remotely with his coach Ahmad Harara, a 32-year-old Palestinian from the Gaza Strip and established in Egypt several years ago.
“Since then, I have been supervising Wassim’s training remotely,” he says.
The two men can only see each other abroad, because Israel does not allow Gazans to travel to the Palestinian Territories, with some exceptions.
“I only see him when I travel” for international tournaments, explains the young boxer. “He sets my training schedule every day and I work out every morning.”
Then, his mentor, another athlete, Nader Jayoussi, takes over in the Ramallah room where other boxing hopefuls exchange blows, to the backdrop of traditional Palestinian songs and rap.
His usual training partner does not box in the same category as him, since he weighs 71 kg, compared to 57 kg for Wassim Abou Sal. He does have an opponent of the same weight, but he is based in Jerusalem, which complicates the fights.
“It makes tournaments complicated to organize, so there are fewer competitions in the country,” regrets the boxer, who notes that going abroad also has its share of difficulties. “Many countries refuse visas to Palestinian passport holders or we miss tournaments due to waiting for visas.”
To get to Paris, he will first go to Amman, Jordan, by road.
“We don’t have that many good boxers that I can train with Wassim. It’s a big challenge for us, because iron sharpens iron,” laments Mr. Jayoussi, for whom it is, however, a “proud moment, not only for me, but for Palestine.”
Beyond the worries that have become daily, it was necessary to train against the backdrop of the war in Gaza which has affected the mental health of athletes who receive information every day about athletes killed, says the coach.
He cites a coach killed in an Israeli air raid, a boxer from Gaza who lost his uncle and another who lost an eye to a shrapnel.
The war was sparked by the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7, leading to the death of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
In Ramallah, Wassim Abou Sal “trains, eats, sleeps”, and dreams of a medal. “It’s like I’ve got my life back.”