Teenage prodigy Fares Ibrahim raising the bar for Qatar
DOHA, November 30, 2017-Young weightlifter will be competing against the world's best weightlifters on Sunday at 2017 World Championships
Fares Ibrahim is one of Qatar's brightest young sporting stars. Still only 19, the teenage weightlifter earlier this year won the World Junior Championships, adding to his 2016 Asian Championship title and seventh placing at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Fares will be competing against the world's best senior stars on Sunday when he looks to stamp his mark in Qatari history books once again at the 2017 World Championships in Anaheim, USA.
For Fares, weightlifting has always been a family affair. His father and brothers were all weightlifters and he tagged along to their training sessions. However, he didn't take it seriously until he won gold in the first competition he ever competed in.
“It felt amazing and I was so excited to continue and work harder to achieve even more," he said.
Fares' pathway to success has been carefully carved in close partnership with his father, who is also his coach and his inspiration.
“My father always pushes me and gives me confidence. He often says, 'Fares, you can achieve whatever you want as long as you believe in yourself'. He understands everything about me – I don't have to explain to him when I'm tired, he just knows what I need and we understand each other."
The father/coach relationship works because, “he can play different characters with me. He is my coach at the gym, my father at home and my friend outside the house".
Fares' first major achievement came in 2014 when, at just 16, he won the Qatar Cup and broke the world youth record in the process, which gave him an early taste of international success and motivated him “to break new records and to work hard to win a medal in the Olympics".
Having tasted victory before, he was disappointed to win a bronze at the 2016 World Junior Championships. “I wasn't that happy. Afterwards, I started to put more effort into my training and I didn't take any vacations until the 2017 World Junior Championships."
Fares changed many things in his programme including how he focused in training, his sleep, and his diet.
The changes and hard work paid off and Fares won an incredible two gold and one silver medal at the same event one year later, which “felt amazing because I could see the results of my hard work".
Also in 2016, Fares, then only 18, was the youngest athlete to participate in the Rio 2016 Olympic weightlifting finals, finishing an impressive seventh.
“It was a good chance for me to see how the big athletes train, how they focus and how they avoid stress. It was a great experience and I was so happy that I was representing Qatar at the Olympics," he said.
Rio experience is sure to prove invaluable as Fares takes to the stage in America next week for his first senior World Championships.
As many as 600 male and female competitors from 100 countries will compete across 15 weight categories, with Fares moving up to the 94kg category for the first time in his career.
Once again, he will be the youngest athlete in the competition and, whilst he is aware that he will be up against very strong competitors, he is confident with his preparations and his sights are set high.
“We have been working very hard and I have had a strong, focussed training programme which has developed my performance greatly. My ambitions are very high and I am aiming to win a medal. If I succeed when I am still only 19, it will be amazing."
He knows that winning a medal will require him to break his personal bests and his goals are to lift 170kg in the snatch and 220kg in the clean and jerk. However, if achieving these goals doesn't win him a medal, he will be content with his achievements and “will still be proud that I have lifted these weights at my age".
It is not just immense physical strength that creates a world-class weightlifter but huge inner mental strength is of equal, if not greater importance.
“Sometimes an athlete might be physically ready to raise the bar but mentally he cannot. The athlete needs support from the coach and the psychologist to help him mentally prepare and get rid of his fears. It contributes 50 percent to the whole preparation," Fares said.
However, when it comes to the actual moment of lifting in a competition, Fares completely empties his mind. “All I think of on the stage is to raise the bar no matter how heavy it is. I concentrate on maintaining my self-confidence and convince myself that I will succeed."
Like most professional sports, a weightlifter needs to completely dedicate their lives to their sport.
“To reach a high level in weightlifting requires sacrificing many things. I spend most of my time in training and everything I do at home is for the sake of training," he said.
“Food and weight play a huge role in weightlifting, especially in championships because if you compete in the 94kg and your weight is 94.1kg, you won't be able to compete."
The intensity of his training, however, also means he needs to eat a lot. “I might consume a whole lamb in just 10 days! I burn a lot of calories in my training sessions so I need to make them up through a certain diet that includes vegetables, protein, carbohydrates, bread, meat, chicken and milk, as well as the necessary vitamins and minerals."
But probe him further, and it all seems worth it. “It feels amazing when I win first place, wear the medal and make my country proud."
The focus will shift to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics after the World Championships. Between now and then, his goal is simple: “to win the gold medal in every competition that I compete in".
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