Kuwait City, Kuwait, June 11, 2024: OCA Athletes’ Committee member Husein Alireza will have a very different role at the Olympic Games this summer compared to Tokyo 2020.
Three years ago, Husein was competing for Saudi Arabia in the men’s single sculls of the Olympic rowing competition.
This time he will be in Paris for three weeks “working really hard” to be elected as a member of the International Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission.
“It shows my commitment to representing athletes. It is a passion,” he said.
“The only thing that comes close to the joy of competing is the fulfillment of helping others.”
Husein, 30, was elected to the OCA Athletes’ Committee during the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China last October and was nominated by the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee for the position of Chair.
In an online vote among OCA Athletes’ Committee members on Monday, June 10, Husein missed out to China’s Ding Ning but, during his pre-vote address, made it clear his commitment to helping athletes was for the long-term.
He said he started rowing in 2016 during his master’s degree at Cambridge and “fell in love with it”.
“At graduation I decided to train full-time in order to qualify for Tokyo 2020. There was no Saudi rowing federation at the time so I had to find funding on my own and train away from home until I founded the Saudi Rowing Federation in 2019.
“Last year we ranked first out of 97 federations in Saudi in technical evaluations, so this taught me so much about sports diplomacy and achieving results. Rowing had never existed in Saudi and now it was the best performing federation.”
Husein moved from competing to helping others, and said of this experience: “I started mentoring and coaching the athletes which I found incredibly fulfilling. At that time, I decided this is what I want to do with my life. I absolutely love seeing people’s lives transformed from when they first sign up to rowing and, fast forward a few months to a year, and their life has completely transformed.
“They are more confident; they have better self-esteem. They have a sense of purpose in life. I absolutely love seeing these results and this is how I want to dedicate the rest of my life.”
Husein said his Tokyo experiences would stand him in good stead for the future regarding understanding and representing athletes.
“I have faced significant challenges like just before Tokyo I lost my mother to cancer in 2020 and I suffered a collapsed lung two months before Tokyo and then I got covid one month before Tokyo.
“I got to Tokyo eventually, my body was pretty destroyed, but this period taught me a lot about athletes and mental health. These experiences allow me to relate to many issues athletes face, from lobbying, from funding to mental health, to living in isolation. I am so committed to athlete representation.”