Basit sets sights on professional crown

UAE bodybuilder Al Basit sets sights on professional crown

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Dubai: After bagging the ‘strongest man in the universe' title at the Arnold Classic in the US in March this year, the UAE's Eisa Ebrahim Hassan Obaid Al Basit is now training his sights on being equally successful as a professional body builder.

"It's simply such a great feeling to walk around as the strongest man in the world," Al Basit told Gulf News a few days after returning from his maiden appearance at the annual Arnold Amateur IFBB International Bodybuilding Championship held at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium and the Greater Columbus Convention Centre last month.
 

Held as a part of the annual Arnold Sports Festival, the UAE bodybuilder outshone some of the top amateurs coming from more than 40 countries to win his weight category and the overall crown as well.

"He was simply the best body builder and there was no doubt he would walk away with the overall title," remarked Abdullah Khurshid Mutawa'a, who travelled all the way to the US to watch the competition.

And Al Basit's true moment of glory came when seven-time Mr Olympia winner Arnold Schwarzenegger himself came up on stage and handed him the winner's Tony Nowak jacket in the presence of Rafael Santonja, president of the International Federation of Bodybuilding (IFBB) and Jim Manion, president of the US National Physique Committee.

"Arnold was impressed with my achievement more so when he heard that I came from the UAE. He requested me to pose for him and I obliged simply because he is such a great body builder and he has always been my model," Al Basit said.

Hard work

"I am happy with what this sport has given me. I can see myself growing in this sport, more so now because I am a professional. It has been two years of hard work leading up to the Arnold Sports Festival and now it is time for me to reap the fruits."

"I am a pro now. And I don't want to stop here. It was always my passion to set a pathway for others to follow and I think winning this title is just the start for me. My plan is to be with the best pros in the world and I want to start this by going to the next edition of the Arnold Classic," Al Basit said.

With a fresh goal before him, Al Basit promised to take the next logical step of his career as a professional body builder.

"Very soon I will have a pro coach (former Arab champion and US-based George Farah) who has promised to help the UAE bodybuilder become a world pro champion.

"My coach Jaffar helped me become a world class bodybuilder, and now it is time to move on."

The making of a champ from the eyes of a coach

"He wanted to be a champion and today he is one," Jaffar Ashkanani, the coach for Eisa Ebrahim Hassan Obaid Al Basit, told Gulf News.

"He loved football, but he wanted to stand out from the lot. And today he is our world champion and I feel so happy and proud about him," Ashkanani said.

Ashkanani was with the champion every step on his way to becoming the best in the world in March this year. "I had that belief that this bodybuilder could do it on the international stage. When he came to me he had a nice shape, but a small body. The challenge lay in transforming this into something big," he added.

According to the coach, Al Basit dreamt of being a world champion. "I remember we were driving together for a competition in Abu Dhabi in 1998 and he promised me he would win the world title one day.

Ashkanani sees 2011 as the crucial year for Al Basit. "His weight now is 128kgs, but during the competition in the US he was 113kgs. However, he needs to increase his weight to between 135-140kgs," he said.

"He has some weak parts on the body and we need to upgrade these into a better shape. Something that he seriously needs to do now is to try and achieve perfection in his body shape. I realize that there is no one who can be complete as a human. There is only God who can be perfect, but he has to try to achieve this perfection," Ashkanani said.

Eisa facts:

1. Quirky: Eisa's biggest problem in the past was to find a store where he could buy "some decent clothes" since his size is 3XL. "There were only a couple of shops who used to specialise in clothes for my size, one of them in Bur Dubai. But now there are a few outlets that have my sizes like the ones in Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates," he says. "This time when I went for the competition to the US I picked up few clothes from there as they are freely available there."

2. Training: Eisa trains twice a day. He wakes up at 6am and starts his first session of training at 7am for an hour and a half followed by a second one of two hours later in the evening.

3. Early years: Eisa started off as a football player for Al Shabab Club. But soon switched to body building and never looked back after that. "Everyone played football at that time as it was a craze. But I wanted to do something different. I wanted to chart a career of my own. It was like love at first sight," he said.

4. Sleep time: Eisa goes to bed by midnight and wakes up at 6am so that he gets his full quota of six hours of sleep. And he does not wake up in the middle of the night for a snack.

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