By Şevket F. ERBAY
Mohamed Musa Ahmed. The name looks pretty generic for the vast Arab world and may extend through to Islamic countries where he came from. He registered as a Pakistani for years in the athletics annals and copied from one to another such that. Meanwhile, a respected ATFS member, Ram Murali Krishnan, has carefully corrected his country code from PAK to PLE according to his own memories because he was in the Nehru Stadium when Musa took the bronze medal for Palestine.
Mohamed Musa represented Palestine for the first time in the 1989 edition, exactly on the first anniversary of the declaration for State of Palestine in November 1988. Remember, at that time, the IAAF did not recognize the event as an official continental championship but labelled the Asian Track and Field Meet due to Israel's expulsion from the championships until 1990 when the Israeli Athletics Federation joined European Athletics.
UNDER THE QATARI FLAG
Before going to New Delhi, Mohamed Musa competed in the World Military Games in Ostia under the Qatari flag, where he supported for training. He broke the Palestinian 10,000 metres record to 29:06.61 to secure the bronze medal behind future Olympic champion Dieter Baumann and Belgian marathoner Eddy Hellebuyck. His 10,000m national record (also has 1500 and 5000 records simultaneously) stood until 1996 when Mohamed Bakeet lowered it to under 29 minutes in The Hague meet.
Musa and his eight colleagues travelled to India to compete at the Asian Championships, this time representing his people, the Palestinians. Surprisingly, he claimed a bronze medal by clocking 29:18.78 in harsh conditions. Although he has written a brilliant story there, it will be hidden in the records for years of a spelling error in his country code!
Mohamed Musa had the honour of representing Palestine at the World Athletics Championships in 1993, but he failed to finish 10,000 metres heat, where he ran alongside all-time great Haile Gebrselassie on 20 August.
***
Athletics Podium strongly condemns the far-right Government that captured Israel and committed war crimes in Gaza and West Bank for years. We also condemn Hamas for their horrific attack on the Israelis on October 7, which gave the perfect reason for the invasion to the extremists.
