In Paris, Palestine’s Yazan Al Bawwab swims for his homeland and dad

PARIS – For most of his career, Palestinian swimmer Yazan Al Bawwab has kept his focus on the pool.

He prefers to keep politics separate from sport, but the 24-year-old now shoulders the responsibility of speaking out about the ongoing war in Gaza.

At the Paris La Defense Arena’s media mixed zone on July 28, he is fielding multiple requests for interviews about his homeland.

“It’s an amazing feeling for any athlete to be at the Olympics, it’s the pinnacle of sports,” said Al Bawwab, who was one of the flagbearers for Palestine at the opening ceremony.

“For me, it’s quite special because I’m Palestinian – we don’t have sports in our country, we don’t have one pool – so it’s an amazing feeling to be here to represent a country that has no voice.”

And so as he walks towards the starting blocks for his 100m backstroke heat, he flashes a peace sign and has a Palestine flag painted on his chest.

His second Olympic outing lasted under a minute as he clocked 58.26 seconds in the heats, placing him 43rd out of 46 swimmers. But for Al Bawwab and his compatriots, the Paris Games are more than just about sport.

Al Bawwab, who was born in Saudi Arabia to Palestinian refugees, is part of a contingent of eight athletes from six sports – athletics, boxing, judo, taekwondo, shooting and swimming – competing in Paris.

Watching the situation unfold in Palestine has not been easy for them. Many lives have been lost in the Israel-Hamas war since Oct 7, 2023, and among them are Al Bawwab’s Asian Games roommate and a team coach.

But it serves as an important reminder for him every day. He told The Straits Times: “It’s devastating. I zone it out completely and because of sports I can zone out things. But I’m human and any human being seeing kids and people you know suffering, you cannot be okay with that.

“It’s difficult, but I try to think about it whenever I wake up in the morning – I say it’s harder on other people.”

After this interview, he checks his phone and his Instagram inbox is flooded with messages from strangers showing support for his cause.

Sport has provided a platform for Al Bawwab to spread awareness about the plight of Palestinians and offer a message of hope for those in his home country.

But he admitted that he sometimes feels conflicted about these interactions, noting that “there are kids in Gaza who message me and say, ‘Hey I want to be like you. How do I train’?

“But people in Palestine don’t even have a pool so how are they supposed to train and be Olympians?” he added.

But he replies, tries to make them happy, and continues to swim. After all, this swimming dream is not just his.

It began because of his father, Rashad, who always had ambitions of being a swimmer. The elder Al Bawwab left Palestine for Italy when he was 18 in search of a better life.

He worked as a street vendor and is now a successful businessman in Dubai, where he sells furniture, but his swimming dreams never materialised.

His son has fulfilled those dreams and Al Bawwab wants to use this platform to promote peace. He said: “We hope that we are treated equal, have the opportunity to be normal like everybody else and not have to worry about conflict.”