Abu Dhabi: It’s common for brothers and sisters to engage in banter or light fights when they are growing up, but the Al Hammadi siblings have taken their fight to a different level as they carry the UAE flag higher in jiu-jitsu and MMA.
Zamzam Al Hammadi (17), Ghala Al Hammadi (15), and her twin brother Zayed Al Hammadi (15) don’t just fight with their opponents; they also fight and prepare among themselves for the championships. Adding to their strength is their mother Nada Al Nuaymi, who also doubles up as a coach of the trio.
“Our mother kills us,” Zamzam told Gulf News on the sidelines of the press conference to announce the third MMA Youth World Championships, to take place at Mubadala Arena from August 6-10. “She makes us do all the things that we hate. She takes us out of our comfort zone, which helps us a lot in our matches. The good thing is that she knows all our weaknesses and strengths and keeps working on them. We train together and learn from each other.”
Rising champions
Zamzam, who began her training in jiu-jitsu from her mother when she was two and a half years old, created history last year when she became the first woman champion in UAE’s history by winning the 52kg gold in the MMA Youth World Championships. Ghala followed in her sister’s footsteps, winning the 40kg gold with a lightning-fast armbar in the group stages, the fastest in the history of the tournament.
Zamzam, a Grade 12 student who wants pursue political science like her mother, won the Jiu-Jitsu Junior World Championship title in Kazakhstan, setting another record by achieving the double of jiu-jitsu and MMA world titles. The young double champion and her sister are ready to defend their crowns in MMA.
“I won the gold in the last two years in the Abu Dhabi World Youth Jiu-Jitsu Championship, and I’m aiming to win the title for the third straight time. But now our focus is on winning the MMA Youth World Championships next month,” Ghala, who is just starting her Grade 10, added. Sport runs through the Al Hammadi family as their late father Mohammed Al Hammadi had represented the UAE in basketball.
Balancing sports and studies
It is not just in sports that the Al Hammadi siblings are getting their mother’s support. Nada also helps them with their homework and their preparations for studies, as they spend almost 5-6 hours on training and cardio every single day.
Ghala’s twin brother, Zayed Al Hammadi, also in Grade 10, is now training in Tajikistan as part of a select MMA UAE contingent preparing for the Youth Championships. UAE, after a humble beginning in the MMA championships, finished fourth on the medals table. Zayed won a bronze in the Youth Championships last year and a silver at the 2023 IMMAF Asian Championships in Bahrain.
Event highlights
The event, held under the patronage of Sheikh Khaled Bin Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, will feature more than 800 athletes from over 45 countries, highlighting Abu Dhabi’s growing prominence in the global Mixed Martial Arts community.
The stunning rise in popularity and performance has prompted the UAEMMA to raise the bar higher. Mohammed Jassim Al Hosani, Member of UAEMMA Committee, told Gulf News that the sport has seen phenomenal growth, thanks to the four gold medals.
Grassroots development
“When it came to the grassroots level with the amateur MMA circuit, there was nothing until 2021 when the UAE MMA committee was established. That’s when we started looking at how we can develop MMA from the grassroots and focus on these kids. The direction from the board members of the UAE jiu-jitsu and MMA Federation was to focus on the youth as it is easy to mould them at a younger age. So we invested in the Youth World Championships,” Al Hosani said.
“We hosted the first one in 2022, we didn’t expect anything out of it, but we ended up getting our first gold. So that opened the doors for us to invest even more, and in the next event, we got four gold medals. So there is more pressure on us to improve our performance. We sent our Under-18, Under-16, and Under-14 to a training camp in Tajikistan for the first time. Now, the sky is the limit.”
On Tuesday, Mohamed Salem Al Dhaheri, Vice-Chairman of the UAE Jiu-Jitsu and Mixed Martial Arts Federation, was present when Mohammed Bin Dalmouj Al Dhaheri and Kerrith Brown, President of the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF), signed an extension of the partnership to host the Youth World Championships for another three years.
Future of MMA
“This year’s Championships, the largest in the history of the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation, feature the participation of more than 800 male and female athletes from over 45 countries, as it continues to grow annually. As the only amateur MMA organisation recognised by the World Anti-Doping Agency, we are proud to continue building the future of our sport by promoting clean and fair MMA,” Brown said.
One of the keys to MMA success is that most of these young fighters also practice another sport like jiu-jitsu.
“We have to be aggressive in combat sports to get the technique that you need to be successful. Jiu-jitsu is helping our ground game while MMA is helping our upper game. My heart naturally goes toward both these combat sports,” Zamzam concluded.
