This year’s Paris Olympics have been long awaited, whether you’re waiting for the festivities, your favorite athletes, sports, or you’re just curious what the hype is about (we know we’re not the only one’s who were wondering how the HELL they were going to swim in the Seine River, you know, given the whole…fiasco), they definitely did not disappoint thus far. This round of Olympics have been especially exciting for Egypt and the Arab countries for the groundbreakingly high number of female participants and new records broken this year.
Tunisian fencer Fares Ferjani made history by winning the first medal for the Arab world this year, Mashael Al-Ayed became Saudi’s first Olympic swimmer, and Dunia Abutaleb as the first Saudi Arabian woman to earn direct Olympic qualification participating in taekwondo. Benjamin Hassan, the first Lebanese tennis player to win a match at the Olympics on Sunday, wrote history after defeating Christopher Eubanks, and finally, Safiya Al Sayegh, who is on the track to make history as the first female cyclist from the UAE to compete at the Olympics. These are only some amongst the many, many others that are making us proud and representing the Arab excellence in this year’s Olympics.
Wondering where Egypt stands? Well, Egypt has already secured it’s first bronze medal this year (and second ever) in fencing, achieved by outstanding performance of Mohammed El-Sayed, who defeated the Hungarian Tibor Andrasfi with a close score of 8-7 in overtime.
We’ve sent our biggest team by far this year with 149 competitors, already setting us up for a strong and fierce competition in all fields. Just yesterday, Egypt’s football team celebrated another win against Spain’s team, and we can look forward to many more wins in the future. More importantly, let’s not forget the incredible display of dedication and perseverance of Nada Hafez, the (proudly) Egyptian three-time Olympian fencer that competed in this year’s Olympics while being 7 months pregnant and left us (and the rest of the world) in absolute awe and admiration! We’re very proud to have a strong and capable representation of the Egyptian woman in sports to look up to.
