Catching up with Ali Khousrof
Way back in April 2012 I wrote about Ali Khousrof, the country’s judo champion who had been wounded in the Arab spring. Ali had taken to the streets to protest against the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh despite his training schedule for the London 2012 Olympics and been shot in the hip, ruining years of conditioning, training and costing him any hope of a medal. When I met him, he had pretty much recovered from his wounds and had just started training again. It was a wonderful story about hope, struggle and determination. Yet in reality his coaches confided in me that they didn’t actually think that Ali would qualify for the games thanks to the amount of time out he had spent out, (although this is something that I omitted from my original story in the Guardian!) Personally I felt that there was something in Ali which made me believe and for me that was enough.