Pair of Palestinian athletes have been running forever

Mike Lopresti, At the Olympics

Transcribed from the clipping

“ATLANTA — The scars of the two-man Olympic team from Palestine tell of the road they have traveled. How tortured it has been, and how important it is to them that they are even in Atlanta. Majid Abu Marahil will show you his right arm, where an Israeli bullet found him in 1987.

Or left knee, where he has fallen running through the streets of a teeming, turbulent Gaza. Ihab Salama can point to his left thigh from being shot during the Intifada, when he would hurl rocks at Israeli troops and then run for his life, and not a medal.

‘Many of my athletes have bullets in them here or there,’ said Muhammar Bississo, chief of the first delegation to ever come into the Olympics under the Palestinian flag. ‘And some of them have died.’

Perhaps it is not surprising that Palestine’s first Olympians are runners, for they come from a place that has seen gunshots in the street and tear gas in the air. To be slow sometimes meant to die. ‘The nature of the life they were living in Palestine,’ Bississo said, ‘necessitates that everybody moves fast.’

‘Not only in sport,’ Marahil added, ‘but also in sprint.’ He is here to run the 10,000 meters, Salama to run the 5,000. Neither will come near a medal. The top competitors will have stopped sweating by the time they finish. But that is hardly the point. Not when your homeland is flying its first Olympic flag.

Not when you have endured the uncertain life of the Gaza refugee camps, and now hope for the fragile peace with Israel to hold in a land where there has been only misery. And not when your people are forever linked with the darkest Olympic hour … Munich … 1972 … Israeli athletes killed … Palestinian terrorists. And so the memory will always stay.

‘We have already won a gold medal by being here to raise the national flag,’ Marahil said. ‘I hope it will be the beginning to ease of the sour images of the past.’ Nor is the final place in the race important when one comes from a homeland with no true running tracks.

Where one has been forced to train in simple sneakers or barefoot, running on the streets or on the beach. ‘What else? We have only our seashore,’ Salama said. ‘I owe it all to the sand.’ He is 20 years old, and until recently had only been on two true running tracks in his life.

Marahil is 32, once worked in an Israeli greenhouse and now is a bodyguard for Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat. Not until 16 days ago had either runner ever worn spiked running shoes. Salama’s may be too tight. The open wound on his left toe from running in the new shoes is a symbol for the struggle Palestine is having to climb to its feet in Olympic sport.

‘Even it was amputated,’ Marahil said, ‘he would run.’ Not until the final days before the Olympics, when an Israeli protest was turned down, was it certain that Palestine would march in the Opening Ceremony. When the day came, it was Marahil who carried the flag. ‘A child’s dream,’ he said. He led the way, for the world to see.

They are here to blaze a difficult trail, the two runners. Perhaps the next Olympics will be different for Palestine. Its distance runners will have been able to train on real running tracks, in real running shoes. And they will not wear the scars from bullets.”

Context added by this archive

The first Palestinian Olympic team was two men, and an American columnist in Atlanta went and asked them how they trained. Majid Abu Marahil, 32, carries an Israeli bullet scar in his right arm from 1987 and a bad left knee from falling while running through Gaza.

He worked in an Israeli greenhouse and then became a bodyguard for Arafat, and he carried the flag at the opening ceremony: a child’s dream. Ihab Salama, 20, was shot in the left thigh during the intifada, throwing stones and then running — and not a medal. He had been on two running tracks in his life. Asked how he trained, he answered:

‘What else? We have only our seashore. I owe it all to the sand.’ Neither had worn spiked shoes until sixteen days before the Games, and Salama ran with an open wound on his toe because the new ones were too tight.

The delegation chief, Muhammar Bississo, explains why Palestine’s first Olympians were runners: the nature of the life they were living necessitates that everybody moves fast. Marahil finishes the thought — not only in sport, but also in sprint. The column ends on the thing it has been circling: And they will not wear the scars from bullets.

Cite this item

"Pair of Palestinian athletes have been running forever," The Courier News, 25 July 1996. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1996-011. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1996-011