Snowshoe tight between the teeth and a single shoe on the left foot. It is in this impressive manner, to say the least, that Ibrahim Hamadtou, 48, competes in the ping-pong event at the Tokyo Paralympic Games.
After losing both arms in a train accident at the age of 10, the Egyptian first tried football before returning to his passion for table tennis. “I was trying to use the racket under my arm first, and I also tried using other techniques that didn’t work so well. So I tried to use my mouth ”, he explained in an interview with the International Paralympic Committee in 2016. Today, he serves by throwing the ball with his foot and chaining the shots thanks to the racket continuously positioned in the mouth. .
“The handicap is not in the arms or the legs, the handicap is not to persevere in everything you want to do,” he added. Ibrahim Hamadtou has become an icon in his sport and in his country. Some videos of her performances have been viewed over 3 million times on YouTube.
Originally from Damietta, a port city in northeastern Egypt, the table tennis player is participating in Tokyo in his second Paralympic Games, five years after Rio where he took eleventh place in the individual competition and ninth place in doubles.
Beaten three innings to zero for his first group match this Wednesday (11-6, 11-4, 11-9) against South Korean Hong-Kyu Park, and “very sad about the defeat”, as he told Spanish media Onda Cero, Ibrahim Hamadtou can still hope to qualify for the knockout matches. He will play his next meeting this Friday, August 27.
