Beitunia: Every morning Palestinian boxer Waseem Abu Sal checks texts from his Cairo-based coach -- a Gazan who cannot travel to him in the occupied West Bank -- to see his daily Olympics training schedule as he prepares to make history. The 20-year-old will be the first Palestinian boxer to participate in the Olympics after he bagged a wildcard spot and now dreams of delivering the first-ever medal for the Palestinians when he competes in Paris. "This has been my dream since I was 10 years old," he told AFP the day after receiving the invitation last week.
"Every day I went to sleep and woke up thinking about how I could reach the Olympics." Abu Sal will take on his first Olympic fight on July 28 after an unusual training routine with his remote coach Ahmad Harara, 32, who is held back by Israeli travel restrictions. "I only see him when I travel" for international competitions, Waseem Abu Sal told AFP at his gym in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
"He writes my training schedule every day, and I train in the morning, and again in the evening with coach Nader Jayousi." Harara said he could not see his star fighter because of "the occupation barriers between the West Bank and Gaza" as an ID holder of the latter territory. "Since then, I have been overseeing Wassem's training remotely," Harara said.
The Palestine Olympic Committee has been represented on the International Olympic Committee since 1995 despite a lack of stateho.