World’s weight lifting champion faces the burden of indifference at home

October 4, 2008 · Filed Under Modern Egypt

Egypt is filled with people who face adversity, most often a function of poverty and systemic indifference. It is a class-based society with an unwritten contract that many people believe condemns them to live as they were born, poor and marginalized. There is a pervasive feeling of impotence, a collective belief that fighting back is futile.

But Heba Said Ahmed never refers to fate; she talks about choices. She does not talk about obstacles; she talks about challenges. “I think there has to be a bit of struggle in your life,” she said. “It strengthens you. It builds character.”

Ms. Ahmed, who had polio as a child, won a gold medal in power lifting during the Paralympic Games in Beijing. She broke a world record in her 181-pound weight class, too, lifting 341 pounds. A few days earlier she was being lauded as an Egyptian Hercules. During the Olympic Games, which preceded the Paralympics in China, Egypt did poorly, earning just one bronze medal. But in the Paralympics, Egypt earned 12 medals, including four golds. “Face savers,” read the headline on Al Ahram Weekly, an English-language newspaper. It was an extraordinary achievement coming from a country where physical disabilities are largely seen as props for street begging.

The youngest of five children, Ms. Ahmed was raised in a second floor walk-up in Zagazig, a small Nile Delta city, north of Cairo. Her father was an accountant for the government. Her mother died when she was 14. Ms. Ahmed had her childhood vaccinations, but she still had polio. Ms. Ahmed’s father encouraged her to go to school and to care for herself. She graduated from Zagazig University with a degree in psychology.

When she was a teenager, her father sent her to physical therapy, where one of the aides noticed her extraordinary upper body strength. Ms. Ahmed started training, then competing, and eventually started racking up titles. She was recruited to the national Paralympic team.

Ms. Ahmed won two African titles. She won a world championship. She won a gold medal during the Paralympics in Athens four years ago, and set a world record in the process. Then she went up a weight class, won a gold in Beijing and set a world record in that weight class, too.

After the stellar showing in Beijing, there was hope that even people with physical limitations could be accepted as heroes. The athletes were greeted by Egypt’s first lady, Suzanne Mubarak, and the president’s son Gamal. They were also promised cash rewards for their victories. But then it was back home to Zagazig, and a return to indifference.

Excerpted from an article by Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times Middle East