I Meet The 10 Youngest Arab Olympians

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Meet The 10 Youngest Arab Olympians

Arab Olympians took home a collective 18 medals from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which were delayed until July 2021 due to the pandemic. Here’s a glimpse at this year’s youngest Arab Olympians.

Hend Zaza

Age: 12 Sport: Table Tennis Country: Syria Zaza was the youngest athlete to compete at the Olympics this year. She was the youngest Olympian since 11-year-old Romanian Beatrice Hustiu competed in figure skating at the 1968 Winter Olympics. The Syrian lost her opening match in table tennis on July 24 to Chinese-born Austrian veteran Liu Jia. Zaza has next been invited by China to further train in the sport.

Noor Yusuf Abdulla

Age: 15 Sport: Swimming Country: Bahrain Bahrain’s youngest competitor at the Games, Abdulla, competed in the Women’s 50m Freestyle Heats on July 30. According to local reports, her performance clocked a new personal best, finishing her race in 28.87 seconds. The teenager was also a flag bearer with Husain Alsayyad representing Team Bahrain during the Games’ opening ceremony on July 23.

Dania Nour

Age: 17 Sport: Swimming Country: Palestine Nour competed in the third heat of the Women’s 50m Freestyle swim on July 30. She was Palestine’s flagbearer at the Games’ opening ceremony and also led the country’s delegation parade for the opening ceremony of the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia. The swimmer took up the sport at age six. In an interview, the graduate said she hopes to enter a U.S.-based university with a swimming team. Lara Dashti

Age: 17 Sport: Swimming Country: Kuwait Dashti finished fourth in the Women’s 50m Freestyle heat on July 30, recording 29.69 seconds in the third heat. The swimmer was Kuwait’s first female athlete to lift the nation’s flag at an Olympic opening ceremony.

Abdulla Essa Ahmed

Age: 18 Sport: Swimming Country: Bahrain Ahmed competed in the Men’s 100m Butterfly heats on July 29. He took up the sport at age six.

Ahmed Hafnaoui

Age: 18 Sport: Swimming Country: Tunisia Hafnaoui took home gold on July 25 when he won the 400-meter freestyle with a time of 3:43:36, edging out Australia’s Jack McLoughlin by just 0.16 seconds. Hafnaoui’s gold medal is only the third ever won by Tunisia in Olympic swimming and the country’s fifth Olympic gold in all sports. He plans to follow in the footsteps of Tunisia’s twotime Olympic gold medalist swimmer Oussama Mellouli.

Mohamed Khalil Jendoubi

Age: 19 Sport: Taekwondo Country: Tunisia Jendoubi secured Africa’s first medal of the 2020 Olympics after winning silver in the Men’s 58kg final on July 24. He came second to Italy’s Vito Dell’Aquila. In the quarter-finals, he defeated Ethiopia’s Solomon Demse with a 23-point gap.

Fatimah Abbas Waheeb Al-Kaabi

Age: 21 Sport: Shooting Country: Iraq Shooter Al-Kaabi finished 51st in the Women’s 10m Air Pistol event on July 25. She previously competed in the 2018 and 2019 Asian Championships and the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires in 2018.

Ahmed Elgendy

Age: 21 Sport: Modern Pentathlon Country: Egypt Engineering student Elgendy won silver in the Men’s Modern Pentathlon on August 7. The athlete came second to Great Britain’s Joe Choong. Elgendy secured a bronze medal in June 2021 at the World Pentathlon Championships, hosted by Egypt. In 2018 and 2019, he was named the International Modern Pentathlon Union Best Junior Male Athlete. Elgendy took up the sport at age six.

Feryal Abdelaziz

Age: 22 Sport: Karate Country: Egypt Abdelaziz became the first Egyptian woman to win a gold medal in the Women’s +61kg Karate final tournament, beating Azerbaijan’s Iryna Zaretska 2-0 on August 7. The pharmacy student took up the sport at age seven in Cairo. The historic win was Egypt’s second gold medal since 1948.