HIGH MUTAZ ESSA BARSHIM
“My best attribute? Definitely my mental strength,” says high jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim. Although this may sound odd coming from a 20year-old athlete, concentration and self esteem are what it takes to succeed in a discipline where every centimetre upward means a world of preparation. “Perhaps I had to sacrifice some of the fun that an average teenager enjoys growing up,” he says, “but the happiness of having set a personal record and one for my country compensates for years of hard work”. Born in Qatar to a Sudanese family, Barshim won
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the 2010 World Junior Championships in Mocton, Canada, and he hit prominence on the international stage at the 2011 Asian Athletics Championship in Kobe, Japan, where he won the gold medal and set a new record for the event at 2.35 metres. “I have trained many champions during my career,” says Barshim’s coach Stanislaw Szczyrba, “but none had his talent. He is like a pure uncut diamond and I have no doubt that one day he will be a world record holder.” A few centimetres more will mean a lot of concentration and hard work for Barshim ahead of the next Olympic Games in London, but Qatar may well be nurturing its first homegrown athlete on the way to Olympic gold.