Dubai: The UAE's lone Olympic Champion Shaikh Ahmad Mohammad Hasher Al Maktoum will make a comeback to international shooting with an eye on the London 2012 Olympic Games at the request of Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman, Dubai Executive Council.
"Shaikh Hamdan requested me to come back for the sake of the country and his instructions are like an order for me and I am glad to make a comeback. It is an honour for me," Shaikh Ahmad told Gulf News in an exclusive interview.
Promise
"I can only guarantee you one thing: I will return with 100 per cent hard work and make my experience count. I will be focused on the task at hand and then we will wait for all this hard work to reap rewards," Shaikh Ahmad promised.
"A couple of words from Shaikh Hamdan roused up and brought me back to what I love most in my life as a sportsman. I am feeling younger and stronger. We live in this country obeying the orders of our leaders, so I am only too honoured to be there. We are there whenever they want us."
A former UAE national squash champion, Shaikh Ahmad took up shooting as his sport in 1997 at the age of 34. From then on, it was one uphill climb for the UAE shooter as he went about trying to assert himself in a sport that is traditionally dominated by European nations and the Americans.
His first participation at an Olympic Games came in 2000 in Sydney when he stood 18th in the Trap with a score of 111 points and a dismal 23rd in the Double Trap with a total of 120.
It was four years later at the 2004 Athens Games that Shaikh Ahmad hogged the limelight becoming the UAE's first and only Olympic gold medal winner when he broke the Olympic record with a total of 189 points from a possible 200. He nearly took a medal in the Trap as well, but fell short by a couple of points to finish in fourth position.
Four years on and with nothing much changed in the sport, a disgruntled and unhappy Shaikh Ahmad participated in Beijing 2008, the results showing as he came in seventh in his pet Double Trap and a distant 30th in the Trap discipline.
"Yes, definitely things have changed now. The self-motivation part has come in, and now I have a much bigger goal to fulfil: bring honour to the UAE flag that is on my shoulders," Shaikh Ahmad said.
