VARIOUS: OLYMPICS: Muslim athletes have to decide on fasting as Ramadan coincides with Olympics

Record ID: 330823

  • Title: VARIOUS: OLYMPICS: Muslim athletes have to decide on fasting as Ramadan coincides with Olympics
  • Date: 9th July 2012
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF SBIHI
  • Embargoed: 24th July 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom
  • City:
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Religion,Religion,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA6VFUWI2MZB9T06GG1FD5EAY2B
  • Story Text: With Ramadan and the Olympic games coinciding in July and August, Muslim athletes must decide whether to fast during the games, given the physical exertion that will be demanded of them.

    The coinciding of Ramadan this year with the London Olympics, which start on July 27 a week into the month-long fast, has created a dilemma for the estimated 3,000 Muslim athletes expected to compete.
    The Ramadan fast is a time when Muslims are required to abstain from food and drink during daylight hours. While many Muslim sportsmen and women may well honour the holy month, some athletes say they have made other arrangements and will defer their fasts until a later date.
    Rower Mohamed Sbihi, who is part of Great Britain's team in the Olympic games, said he would not be fasting during the games.
    "The decision was made very early on that I shouldn't fast. It was a personal decision that I made between myself and my family and then I informed the coaches of this. Last year I missed fasting as well because trying to make it up in the winter would have been really hard for me, given that it was Olympic winter training and I didn't really want to mess my chances of getting into a boat. So I have had to make other arrangements," said Sbihi.
    Morocco-born Sbihi said he will send money to his relatives there to distribute to poor families during the holy month and he has donated to a UK-based charity that works with Moroccan youth as one form of making up for not fasting.
    As the first practising Muslim rower to be part of Team GB, Sbihi said he hoped his participation would inspire others.
    "Hopefully through my success or even through me being there as a Muslim athlete there will be young Muslim kids who will see me and aspire to be just like me or better than me. I am the first practising Muslim that is a GB rower; in some ways it is an honour, but then it is also a shame. I wish there were Muslims before me that had rowed. Hopefully, I have broken down a barrier that will open up an influx of Muslim kids that want to row," he added.
    Medical experts say that, theoretically at least, a reduction of food intake during Ramadan could deplete an athlete's liver and muscle glycogen stores. This is likely to lead to a drop in performance, particularly in sports requiring muscle strength.
    During Ramadan and the Olympics, Paralympians will be in training for the 2012 games which run from August 29 until September 9.
    Saudi Paralympics athletics coach Sami al Zerlili said the final decision to commit to fasting during training would be left up to the athletes, but he explained that the training programme would not be compromised as a result.
    "For the players the option remains for them to fast or not to fast, it is their choice. But technically we do not change the training programme because of Ramadan, where the timing of the games for example comes at the time of (Iftar) breakfast. As a coach, I cannot change my training time because the player is fasting. The last decision is for the player to make on whether to fast or not; we do not interfere in that," said Sami al Zerlili, while members of his squad had dinner with Sir Tom Phillips, the British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia at his home in Riyadh.
    Phillips said the coincidence in the timing was unfortunate, but that athletes were determined to overcome the extra test.
    "Of course we know it is Ramadan and I know a lot of discussions are going on to find ways to cope with the particular pressures that might mean for some of the athletes. There is not much one can do about of some of these timing aspects. It is unfortunate I know and it might affect some of the Saudis who otherwise would have gone to the games, but I think the athletes are determined to go and compete," said Phillips.
    Faced with the question of whether fasting would affect performance, the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) nutrition working group convened a meeting in 2009 to review the evidence. They came to the conclusion that Ramadan fasting could be problematic for some athletes in some sports.
    The likely overall impact of Ramadan on London 2012 is far from clear but one Beijing games gold medal holder from the Saudi Paralympic team said fasting does not affect his performance.
    Ossemah Masoud Alshinqiti, who won triple jump gold, said he would have no difficulty fulfilling his religious duties and representing his country.
    "It is normal, we played in 2008, I played during Ramadan, there was not any problem with that, you can play while you are fasting without any problems," said Alshinqiti.
    Set to become the first Palestinian to compete at the Olympic Games on merit when he steps onto the mats of the judo competition, Maher Abu Rmeileh said he referred to religious scholars before making his decision to defer fasting.
    "Concerning fasting, we asked sheikhs, we asked religious scholars and they said that if we're out on a mission like this, out on a national mission, there is no problem with not fasting, on condition that when you return, you fast the days you lost, because fasting, like prayer, is obligatory," said the 28-year-old judoka, who qualified for the games in Japan in June.
    "Sport is not affected by fasting, by Ramadan and things like this. Sport will remain sport, regardless of the season or the month in which it is performed. It is all the same. We are ready and it doesn't matter if it's Ramadan or not," added Abu Rmeileh.
    The judoka, who trains at a small gym which also serves as a banqueting hall at the al-Quds Sports Club, in a cramped alleyway in Arab east Jerusalem, will attend the Olympics along with four other Palestinians: Gaza runner Bahaa al-Farra; Cairo-based swimmer Ahmed Jabreel; and two West Bank women: swimmer Sabeen Hazboun from Bethlehem and runner Worood Maslaha from Nablus.
    Sports scientists who took part in the 2009 IOC working group reviewed more than 400 research articles on Ramadan and selected those relevant to sporting performance. They found that 'actual responses vary quite widely, depending on culture and the individual's level and type of athletic involvement...There are often small decreases of performance, particularly in activities requiring vigourous and/or repetitive muscular contraction'.
    But in the review published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM) in May of that year, they concluded that in most situations 'Ramadan observance has had only limited adverse consequences for either training or competitive performance'.
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