Long live the individual champion..——Hassan Al-Mestakawi

** I love football and I love the clashes when two opponents are evenly matched. Football has plans, tactics, creativity, skill, chess, but I never forget the champions of individual events, they are champions in the literal sense of the word, champions. They do not have the fame, star status, spotlight or attention that football players have, either at the public or media level. There is an old theory that when the media pays attention to individual games, it creates popularity for the game. He creates heroes. It is an old saying that is still repeated today. Of course, it is necessary for the media to pay attention to individual games and their heroes, it must explain how they train and the hardships and difficulties they suffer in training, but the media cannot create the popularity of a game, nor can it create heroes with words.

** Champions are born from a wide range of practitioners and examples create champions, the prosperity of modern squash was the genius idea of ​​the late colleague Ibrahim Hegazy, and the sport attracted the success of Barada. And the interests of President Mubarak, may God have mercy on him in the competition and championship. I say modern prosperity because Egyptian squash has a long history, since Abdel Fattah Pasha Amr, Egypt’s ambassador to London, monopolized the British Open championship six times between 1930 and 1936, and after him came champions Ibrahim Amin, such as Abu (Abu) Talib, Mahmoud Abdel Karim, Ibrahim Amin, Jalal Alam, Jamal Awad and Abdel Waheed, Al Shorbagi, Karim Darwish and Amr Shabana, even the heroes of this generation.

** There are other reasons for the superiority of Egyptian squash, including individual skills and intelligence, Egyptian squash players are equivalent to Brazilian football players during the Samba Masters period. Through all this, I tried to prove that creating champions in individual games is not just a media interest, if we had 20 million tennis players registered with the federation, we would have Wimbledon champions and compete with Federer before he retires. , Nadal, Alcaraz and others. Hero factories in individual games are very expensive.

** I hope no one thinks that the whole world is like this. Not true. Despite the power, fame and money that football has, the whole world cares about the champions of all sports because people understand the extent to which the champion went through in order to achieve his heroism. I am talking here about the many Egyptian sports stars who have achieved various feats in many sports such as table tennis, volleyball, squash, handball, pentathlon, short swimming, weapons, wrestling, weightlifting, table tennis and handball. Also athletics, rowing, fin swimming, karate, taekwondo, handball, basketball, judo, archery, notice the diversity, notice that they are young and old champions, both women and men. They are the heroes of Egyptian sports, from clubs, armed forces and youth centers, they are heroes that many people may not know about.

** I’m talking about Basant Hamida, the champion of the 100 and 200 meters sprint. For me, as a follower of sports and athletics for many years, I don’t think that the Egyptian champion will win two gold medals in the Mediterranean Games. I’m talking about the squash champions Ali Farag, Karim Abdel-Gawad, Noor El-Sherbini, Ranim El-Weli, Noor El-Tayeb, and others who made the world study the genetic talent of Egyptian squash players. The weightlifting team has Sarah Samir, Karim Kara, Mohamed Ihab, Nima Sayyid, Yasser Osama and others, Ahmed El Gendi is the pentathlon champion, Hana Sabki is ranked fourth in the world in rowing. Farida Othman, Marwan Al-Qamash and Youssef Ramadan are the short swimming champions. World Youth Wrestling Championships gold medalist Mustafa Hussein and 3km flipper swimming world champion Marwan Al-Amrawi. Such is the quality of the table tennis wonder. I cannot count all the heroes.

** When an Egyptian swimmer wins the US college championships, it is a real achievement because US universities are talent factories. When Farida Osman wins gold or bronze at the World Championships, it is an unprecedented achievement. Unfortunately, there is a misunderstanding about what heroism and victory mean.

** These heroes endure the hardships of training and are also deprived of many of the pleasures of life, swimming pools, wrestling rings, shooting ranges, basketball courts, volleyball, handball, rowing, etc. For these stars, things are like a niche and they do everything for the sake of heroism and success.

** I know there are countries that are advanced in sports, they are also advanced in industry, trade, agriculture, technology and economy, and they are all great countries.

I also know that we still have a long way to go to be among the advanced sports countries that win world and Olympic medals, but I know that sports require great potential and it is not a common culture in our country, and I know that sports are a luxury for the public to practice due to very old economic conditions. However, every hero who raises the Egyptian flag deserves a tribute, they are 100% Egyptian, and we have not yet started the stage of buying heroes and talents, naturalizing them, and boasting about them.

** Long live the individual and team champions who live in the shadow of football!