Abdulsalam Farah hopes to follow in the footsteps of his hero and namesake Mo Farah and become a champion long distance runner.
Just like Britain's most successful track athlete, Abdulsalam Farah is of Somali heritage but grew up in Al Ain.
Abdulsalam, 19, said he became hooked on athletics after watching Mo Farah on TV.
"I used to watch athletics from a young age on television and Mo Farah was a name that drew my attention for the simple reason he had my surname and he was from Somalia," Abdulsalam told The National.
Mo Farah's achievements include back-to-back gold medals in both the 5,000 and 10,000 metres at the London and Rio Olympics as well as seven World Championship gold medals.
“He is my role model," Abdulsalam said. "I want to follow on his path. I want to be better than him. People may think I am crazy but nobody becomes a world champion without a start. I believe I can achieve my objectives if I work towards my goals.”
Abdulsalam holds several records in the youth division in the UAE and comes from good stock. Abdi Bile, Somalia's most decorated track and field star and winner of the 1,500m at the 1987 World Championships in Rome, is a distant relative. “I haven’t met him as I lived all my life here in the UAE but I came to know the connection through my father,” Abdulsalam said.
The youngest in a family of eight boys and one girl, Abdulsalam joined Al Ain Club athletic team in 2017 and went on to set several national records including in road races over 5km and 10km. He also won the 1,500m gold medal at the Gulf University Games in Kuwait.
In 2018, he travelled to Kenya at his own expense to train under Jimmy Beauttah, better known to Kenyans as 'Coach Simba', at Kip Keino's High Performance Training Centre where he spent three months training at high altitude.
Last year, he twice travelled to Ethiopia to train alongside elite athletes such as Kenya's Micah Kogo, the 10,000m Olympic bronze medallist at Beijing 2008, Genzebe Dibaba, the female Ethiopian who won silver in the 1,500m at Rio four years ago, and Djibouti’s 2016 IAAF Diamond League 1,000m chaampion Ayanleh Souleiman.
Abdulsalam was set to return to Kenya in June, but with travel restrictions in place due to the Covid-19 outbreak, that looks unlikely. He hopes to run at the rescheduled World University Cross Country Championship next year in Morocco after it was postponed from the original date of March 7.
Abdulsalam enrolled at Al Ain University in January 2019 to study for a degree in Health and Physical Education where he first encountered Fahad bin Braik, a former UAE national team distance runner and now his manager.
“I heard from my friends in the athletics circle of a teenage distance runner with a lot of potential and I decided to meet him,” Bin Braik said.
“That’s how our relationship began and I truly believe he has the potential to make it big.
“This boy has the passion and the potential but I would like to see him achieve success in both his academics and athletics,” he added.
“I was really fortunate to get connected with Fahad." Abdulsalam said. "He’s guided me in my athletics career in the last three years and will continue to do so until I achieve my objectives. He’s not only a manager but an older brother to me.”
With global sports still suffering from a lack of competition due to the coronavirus pandemic, Abdulsalam's future plans, as far as international competition, are on hold.
When it is safe to compete, Abdulsalam said his immediate target is the 2023 World Championships in Budapest. He hopes to do so representing the UAE, rather than Somalia.
“My main goal is to participate in the IAAF World Championships in 2023. I wish I get to run under the UAE flag as I was born here," he said.
“I have approached both the UAE Athletics Federation and the UAE National Olympic Committee to say that I’ll run under their flag without any obligation on monetary gains or a passport.
“I want to show gratitude for the country that has given me free education and free health services. I just need the chance. They have told me that they’ll look into my matter. Therefore, fingers crossed on that."
I want to show gratitude for the country that has given me free education and free health services. I just need the chance. They have told me that they'll look into my matter. Therefore, fingers crossed on that
Bin Braik, 39, represented the UAE for 14 years before hanging up his running shoes four years ago.
He cites a critical lack of support as one of the reasons he was unable to realise his own dreams and urged the authorities to invest in athletes like Abdulsalam if they hope to see the UAE represented on the track at future Olympics.
He said: “Abdulsalam has the potential and I urge the national companies to step forward and help him build his career as a professional.”
THE SPECS
Engine: 1.6-litre turbo
Transmission: six-speed automatic
Power: 165hp
Torque: 240Nm
Price: From Dh89,000 (Enjoy), Dh99,900 (Innovation)
On sale: Now
THE BIO: Martin Van Almsick
Hometown: Cologne, Germany
Family: Wife Hanan Ahmed and their three children, Marrah (23), Tibijan (19), Amon (13)
Favourite dessert: Umm Ali with dark camel milk chocolate flakes
Favourite hobby: Football
Breakfast routine: a tall glass of camel milk
MATCH INFO
Manchester United 1 (Fernandes pen 2') Tottenham Hotspur 6 (Ndombele 4', Son 7' & 37' Kane (30' & pen 79, Aurier 51')
Man of the match Son Heung-min (Tottenham)
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Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
RIVER%20SPIRIT
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The Year Earth Changed
Directed by:Tom Beard
Narrated by: Sir David Attenborough
Stars: 4
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
BLACKBERRY
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Gulf Men's League final
Dubai Hurricanes 24-12 Abu Dhabi Harlequins
Hydrogen: Market potential
Hydrogen has an estimated $11 trillion market potential, according to Bank of America Securities and is expected to generate $2.5tn in direct revenues and $11tn of indirect infrastructure by 2050 as its production increases six-fold.
"We believe we are reaching the point of harnessing the element that comprises 90 per cent of the universe, effectively and economically,” the bank said in a recent report.
Falling costs of renewable energy and electrolysers used in green hydrogen production is one of the main catalysts for the increasingly bullish sentiment over the element.
The cost of electrolysers used in green hydrogen production has halved over the last five years and will fall to 60 to 90 per cent by the end of the decade, acceding to Haim Israel, equity strategist at Merrill Lynch. A global focus on decarbonisation and sustainability is also a big driver in its development.
Company%20Profile
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yallacompare profile
Date of launch: 2014
Founder: Jon Richards, founder and chief executive; Samer Chebab, co-founder and chief operating officer, and Jonathan Rawlings, co-founder and chief financial officer
Based: Media City, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: 120 employees
Investors: 2014: $500,000 in a seed round led by Mulverhill Associates; 2015: $3m in Series A funding led by STC Ventures (managed by Iris Capital), Wamda and Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority; 2019: $8m in Series B funding with the same investors as Series A along with Precinct Partners, Saned and Argo Ventures (the VC arm of multinational insurer Argo Group)
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The five pillars of Islam
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The biog
Name: Maitha Qambar
Age: 24
Emirate: Abu Dhabi
Education: Master’s Degree
Favourite hobby: Reading
She says: “Everyone has a purpose in life and everyone learns from their experiences”
Company%20profile
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Dhadak
Director: Shashank Khaitan
Starring: Janhvi Kapoor, Ishaan Khattar, Ashutosh Rana
Stars: 3
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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What are the GCSE grade equivalents?
- Grade 9 = above an A*
- Grade 8 = between grades A* and A
- Grade 7 = grade A
- Grade 6 = just above a grade B
- Grade 5 = between grades B and C
- Grade 4 = grade C
- Grade 3 = between grades D and E
- Grade 2 = between grades E and F
- Grade 1 = between grades F and G
Super 30
Produced: Sajid Nadiadwala and Phantom Productions
Directed: Vikas Bahl
Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Pankaj Tripathi, Aditya Srivastav, Mrinal Thakur
Rating: 3.5 /5
'Shakuntala Devi'
Starring: Vidya Balan, Sanya Malhotra
Director: Anu Menon
Rating: Three out of five stars
Who is Tim-Berners Lee?
Sir Tim Berners-Lee was born in London in a household of mathematicians and computer scientists. Both his mother, Mary Lee, and father, Conway, were early computer scientists who worked on the Ferranti 1 - the world's first commercially-available, general purpose digital computer. Sir Tim studied Physics at the University of Oxford and held a series of roles developing code and building software before moving to Switzerland to work for Cern, the European Particle Physics laboratory. He developed the worldwide web code as a side project in 1989 as a global information-sharing system. After releasing the first web code in 1991, Cern made it open and free for all to use. Sir Tim now campaigns for initiatives to make sure the web remains open and accessible to all.
Elvis
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BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
