Anas Al Khalifa was completely soaked and frozen. And he wanted to get back to his room as quickly as possible, to his cell phone. He wanted to try to reach his family in Syria to see if they could have seen his two canoe runs at the Tokyo Paralympics. “It’s difficult because we often have no electricity and no internet in Syria,” said the refugee who lives in Halle an der Saale: “The last time I was in contact with you was a week ago.” He has not seen you for ten years.
Before that, the 28-year-old had to give numerous interviews. Everyone wanted to hear his story. Both in the kayak and in the va’a – an outrigger canoe modeled on boats used in Tahiti – he was last in the lead, but it was a happy ending nonetheless. “I am very proud of myself,” said Al Khalifa in very good German to the German Press Agency: “I definitely have my life back.”
That had often not meant well to him in the past few years. Ten years ago he fled the war from home. According to Deutsche Welle, he first spent two years in a camp, then two more as a fruit picker in Turkey, before he came to Germany in an overcrowded boat via Greece after a 31-day trip.
Fall from a roof
There he worked as a craftsman and installed solar pads. In 2018 he fell from a roof in Magdeburg. “It was wet and I slipped,” he said on ZDF: “When I opened my eyes again, doctors were standing next to me. They said you had a bad accident, you can no longer walk. It was like someone sticking a knife in your heart. I was young and now I could no longer work or walk. I thought my life was over. I wanted to kill myself twice. “
Al Khalifi during the competition in Tokyo: Although the 28-year-old was eliminated after the preliminary run, the sport itself is giving a lot back to the Syrian, who has been so badly shaken by fate.
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Image: dpa
The former Bulgarian Olympic participant Ognjana Duschewa took him under her wing in Halle. “I saw a strong boy in a wheelchair with very sad eyes,” she reported. She told him she would take him to Tokyo by canoe. Al Khalifa looked at her questioningly: “What is a canoe? What is this Tokyo? And why should I go there? “
“I want to win for my brother”
He actually started there on Thursday. Less than two years after he sat in a sports boat for the first time and kept falling over. When his older brother was shot dead in Syria, his motivation was almost gone. But then came the defiance. “I want to win for my brother,” he said. The fact that he was there in Japan as the starter of the refugee team of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) is a victory for him that continues to spur him on. “I’ve seen a lot of people here who were worse off than me and who keep fighting,” he said on Thursday: “When I see these people, I have to keep fighting.” He wants to be back in Paris in 2024. Maybe for the refugee team. Maybe for Germany. In any case, he wants to go canoeing. His boat is like his legs to him, he said: “When I sit in the boat, I feel normal.”
In the long term, he hopes to return to his home country. “When the war is over, I want to go back,” he emphasized: “Because I was born and grew up there. And because my family is there. ”They probably did everything on Thursday to watch his big performance.
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