Against all odds

Female Palestinian runner training for summer Olympics

By Ibrahim Barzak, Associated Press Writer

Against all odds — Indiana Gazette, 29 March 2004 — Indiana Gazette · Indiana, Pennsylvania · 29 March 2004

Transcribed from the clipping

“DEIR EL BALAH, Gaza Strip — Sanaa Abu Bkheet has qualified for the 800-meter run at the Athens Olympics against great odds: she owns only one pair of running shoes, has no access to a track and used to get pelted with rocks during her training in the streets of her hometown. The 19-year-old is one of two Palestinians who will compete at the Aug.

13-29 games in Greece. The other athlete is 17-year-old Raad Aweisat, a swimmer from Jerusalem who has qualified for the 100-meter butterfly. Abu Bkheet is something of an oddity in the impoverished, conservative Gaza Strip.

The sight of the tall, thin woman running through the streets of this ramshackle town in her green track suit used to cause a minor uproar, and children at times would throw rocks at her as she zipped past. ‘It’s not easy to be a runner in Gaza, especially for a female,’ she said. ‘It’s strange because of our traditions.

It’s hard to see a girl running in the streets.’ But she’s since won the support of her neighbors, joyful that one of their own will carry the Palestinian flag before the world at the Olympics. Now, admiring children crowd around her.

And after she came in first among the women runners in a local track meet on Friday, a Palestine TV news crew rushed for an interview. Palestinians gained International Olympic Committee recognition in 1993 after the signing of Israeli-Palestinian interim peace accords. A Palestinian team competed at their first Olympics in Atlanta in 1996.

Abu Bkheet, a middle distance runner, will be the first female runner to represent Palestinians at the Olympics. Her best time in the 800 is 2:28.11.

She took up running at age 12, and her training amounts to this: Each morning she downs a teaspoon of olive oil — said by generations of Palestinian matriarchs to bring good health — and sets out on 90-minute training runs in a simple pair of generic, no-name running shoes.

Without a proper track, she jogs along dirt roads that nearly disappear among the shifting sand near the Mediterranean coast. Her 17-year-old sister Wesam and three other girls from her extended families come along for company. The runners often dodge Israeli army checkpoints and hear not-so-distant gunfire.

‘I know it is a big responsibility to be the first Palestinian woman runner in the Olympics and to represent Palestine,’ Sanaa said. ‘I know it’s going to be very hard to win.’ She lives with four sisters and two brothers in a small house with a roof of corrugated metal sheeting.

In the living room hang medals she’s won in competitions in Gaza, Egypt, Jordan and Iran in the past three years. Her idol is Maria Mutola of Mozambique, the reigning Olympic 800 champion. On Friday in Gaza City, Abu Bkheet came in first for the women in a local track meet.

Handing her a medal and trophy, the awards announcer referred to her — hopefully and with pride — as the ‘Olympic champion.’ Her mother kissed her. On the back of the runner’s plain red T-shirt was the word: ‘Palestine.’”

Context added by this archive

The fullest account in this archive of a Palestinian woman’s life, and it is a sports story. Sanaa Abu Bkheet, 19, of Deir el Balah: one pair of generic running shoes, no track, a best 800 of 2:28.11.

Her training is a teaspoon of olive oil each morning — said by generations of Palestinian matriarchs to bring good health — and ninety minutes on dirt roads that disappear into the sand by the sea. Her sister Wesam, 17, and three other girls run with her for company, and they

dodge Israeli army checkpoints and hear not-so-distant gunfire. She is candid about the other obstacle, which is not the army: It’s not easy to be a runner in Gaza, especially for a female. It’s strange because of our traditions. Children used to throw rocks at her. Now they crowd round her. Her mother Amna is named.

Her idol is Maria Mutola of Mozambique. The last line is the detail the whole piece rests on: on the back of her plain red T-shirt was the word

Palestine.

Cite this item

"Against all odds," Indiana Gazette, 29 March 2004. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2004-014. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2004-014