After winning national and international tournaments, earning top medals and breaking records, the Egyptian swimmer, Marwan Elkamash managed to make it to the Tokyo 2021 Olympic cycle.
“Trendify” interviewed the Egyptian champion who is a few steps away from representing Egypt in the Olympics where he told more about his preparation phase, the result he expects from participation and who he will dedicate his achievement to.
How would your participation in the next Olympic cycle, Tokyo 2021, differ from the last time in Rio De Janeiro 2016?
Qualification to Tokyo was a lot more difficult because of the difficulty of breaking the required records. Moreover, COVID-19 made it much harder as we had 3 months of no swimming. Upon return, we started swimming in the sea since the swimming pools were closed back then. A month later, I caught COVID-19. So, the process of qualification wasn’t an easy one by all means.
How do you prepare, currently, for participation in the Olympics and representing Egypt?
I prepare through training twice a day, for two hours each time. Then I go to the gym for an hour. This program enables me to stay fit and prepared.
What result do you expect from your participation?
My goal is to make it to the final. This never happened before that an Egyptian qualified for the final stage of the Olympics. So, this is the achievement I want to make.
What forms of support do the Egyptian Federation and Ministry of sports offer to you within your preparation period?
In fact, the federation is always there for me and has been offering all forms of support throughout the last year even at COVID-19 time and the lockdown restriction, they never stopped offering support. They helped me a lot throughout the past.
You are not the first Egyptian who went to the US to train and learn like Farida Othman, what is the reason for this?
The US provides swimmers with both good education and the ability to train in parallel in a highly compatible environment for both education and swimming. This helps a swimmer not to stop training and practicing at the time of ongoing semester or terminate a whole career because of education but do both in parallel.
What do you expect for the rest of Egyptian swimmers who qualified for participation in Tokyo 2021?
I can not predict who will do what. I am sure we all are doing our best and training. Surely, it’s God’s well at the end.
In your opinion, what do you think the Egyptian swimmer needs to obtain an Olympic medal?
As long as persistence and goal co-exist, the Egyptian swimmer can do anything and earn top medals.
Who is the swimmer you regard as your role model?
I don’t have a role model in swimming or at least there is no specific swimmer who I can say “this is the one I look forward to swimming with or like”. In my opinion, any person who is successful in his/her field or area of specialization is someone I would look up to and want to be like.
Who is the swimmer you fear confrontation with the most?
I don’t care much about competitors. I believe that with the daily training I can be confident enough and not distracted by what anyone else could be doing or how he/she is performing.
In case you received an Olympic medal, who would you dedicate this achievement to?
Surely, my mom and close ones in the first place. Then, comes my sponsors “Allianz", “Connection Sports Agency” and the federation for sure.