Mahmud Kamel Ahmed has endured tragedy and moral disdain on the road to becoming an international athlete but he is finally reaching his physical peak.
The steeplechase runner has overcome much bigger hurdles than those that line the running track where he trains in south Baghdad. But the true challenge of his life may yet lie ahead.
A Sunni Arab from the province of Diyala, his talent was spotted by a teacher 10 years ago.
“One of the teachers noticed I was a good runner, he encouraged me and so in 2000 I started to train,” Ahmed says. His father, however, was not keen on athletics.
“Running conflicted with his conservative values and he thought it would affect my behavior, so I stopped for a while. He burned my running clothes,” the 27-year-old recalls.
The US-led invasion of Iraq was to have a dramatic impact on Ahmed, who had resumed training in secret.
Al-Qaeda formed bases in Sunni strongholds like Diyala, where the movement’s fanatics considered wearing shorts in public to be an offense, for which people were killed, prompting Ahmed to move to Baghdad in 2004.
Sectarian killings peaked in 2006 and 2007 — the year Ahmed’s life changed.
“I got a telephone call to say that my family had been attacked but that everyone was alright,” Ahmed says.
Three days later he learned the truth.
“I called a driver from my town who works in Baghdad. He told me that my parents, five brothers, two of their wives, an aunt and three nephews had been killed,” he says.
They were murdered because, being Sunnis, al-Qaeda considered them traitors since some family members worked for the Shiite-led government.
Ahmed has competed in countries including Lebanon, Poland, and Greece, winning the bronze medal in the 3,000m steeplechase at the Arab Games in Jordan last year.
While proud of the achievement, he remains miserable about the state of sport in his country.
“I am really close to my best fitness now, but if I stay in Iraq, I will achieve nothing,” Ahmed says.
He was tempted to flee to Germany, where an uncle lives, after competing at a recent event in Poland but the US$85,000 bond that a friend paid to allow Ahmed’s trip abroad stopped him.
“My friend begged me to come back and I had to because he would have lost his money. I couldn’t just run away,” he says.
Although levels of violence have dropped overall, upbeat talk about improving security from those who rule Iraq seven years after the invasion ring hollow for Ahmed.
He cannot return to Diyala because there are still people in the province who would like to kill him. Even the prospect of competing in the 2012 Olympics seems unable to erase the blackness of his recent past.
“It’s impossible for me to go home to Diyala but, if I stay in Iraq, I will achieve nothing,” he says again.
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