CUL/TURE a month or so, it felt like Britain really was happy, for the first time in many years. There was a strong connection through sport. But some of the choices that have been made since, especially regarding funding, in my opinion have been wrong.” The budget for Paralympic powerlifting, which was already in the lowest bracket in terms of state support, has been slashed, going from £1 million to £800.000. Olympic handball, basketball, table tennis and wrestling, as well as Paralympic sitting volleyball and wheelchair fencing will not be funded at all In comparison, Olympic athletics, rowing and swimming all get between £27 and £25. Disability swimming, which is the top Paralympic sport in terms of funding, gets £11.8 million. Ali observes that more money will be diverted towards sports in which athletes have been more successful at winning medals.
‘IF ALL THIS IS ABOUT LEGACY, IT SHOULD BE ABOUT DEVELOPEMENT, NOT ABOUT THE ELITE’ ALI JAWAD
of the London Games, finding them very organized, with the Village accessible for wheelchair users like himself and “probably the best volunteers I’ve worked with”. Ali is all so clearly grateful to his public. “The stadium was packed out with people cheering for us. You can’t ask for more than that”. Unfortunately, his Olympic tour de force was marked by the loss of the silver medal in highly controversial circumstances. Ali recounts his performance in the 56kg category. I have heard him do this a couple of times, so I see him enter into story mode, emotions barely visible under the stubborn self-control of the champion. “On the last attempt there was a situation where it was either silver or nothing,” says Ali. He was trying to lift 189kg. “The last lift was a lift. The referees
disagreed, so we appealed, and it was up to the jury to overturn it. The decision from the jury should come within the first couple of minutes, because if they took longer you’d cool down and your adrenaline would go up; instead, I was kept there for ten, fifteen minutes. The jury then decided that the referees were wrong, so the lift should have been good. But they made me retake the lift. This is against the regulations book, which says in a case like this the lift should be given. We still haven’t been given an explanation for this.” The dismissal of the lift meant that the valid result was 185kg, gaining him a hard-to-swallow 4th place. And this is not the only disappointment that Ali has been in for this year. “It was really good, during the Olympics, that the country really came together. For 16
“The big sports will be able to invest heavily on the development programmes for their sports, and the lesser ones won’t. The sports that do not receive enough funding will be forced to concentrate their efforts on the elite athletes. If all this is about legacy, it should be about development, not about the elite,” is Ali’s analysis. And he knows what happens when there is no investment in people’s future. Lebanese-born Ali has lived all his life in Tottenham, and the riots sweeped through his neighborhood in 2011. “It looked like a war zone. I lived five minutes away from the center of the riots, and for a week or so there would be police and people everywhere on the streets, and the feeling that things could kick off again any minute.” Obviously, the riots were a hot topic with family, friends and locals: “Some were surprised, even shocked, but some weren’t at all. Tottenham is very deprived. I’m not saying I’m happy with what happened, but if people are treated unfairly, they might at some point end up retaliating. They wanted to make a point, and they did.” Ali is not optimistic about the aftermath either. “I think Tottenham got its 15 minutes of fame, and then kind of got forgotten about again.” Ali is at a crossroads. He is fighting Crohn’s and keeping to a mild training regime while he determines whether he wants to return to full hours. He also keeps working towards his degree in Sports Science. He definitely hopes that the propaganda about an Olympic and Paralympic legacy is followed up by facts, for young athletes’ sake. “I’d always encourage kids to get into sports. It’s enjoyable, it boosts your social life, obviously you get fit, it reduces the effect of a lot of illnesses... But to pursue it at an elite level, you have to sacrifice a lot, and it gets quite expensive, unless you’re really, really good. Seeing how things are going, I’d say: get into the right sport, or be prepared for things to be harder”, he adds. And that seems to sum up Ali Jawad’s philosophy at the moment: always strive for the best, but also prepare for the worst. If the Games have had any worth at all,it was in showing us the inspiring performances of people with the same towering determination to break all limits their body imposes on them. In their ideal form, the Olympics and Paralympics are a celebration of achievement. And Ali Jawad has scored not one, but many gold medals for Team Human. Congratulations to him for the past, and best of luck for the future.