Jibo Issak, Hamad

Hamadu Jibo Issaka worked as a gardener and visited the swimming pool. Three months before the start of the Olympic Games in London, he was selected as a participant in rowing competitions, first seated oars in Egypt, and then at the Tunisian Sports Academy. Before the start of the Games, he trained in Belgium and eventually received a special invitation to the singles competition .

On July 28, 2012, Issaka made the preliminary race, where he became the last, showing the time 8: 25.56. The winner of the race, future champion Dreisdel, the Nigerian lost 1:40, and his closest neighbor Lopez from El Salvador a little more than a minute. Hamad’s performance made a media splash and compared him to swimmer Eric Mussambani , who spoke at the Sydney Olympics barely learning how to swim. Issaka received several nicknames, including otter and sloth.

Despite the generally positive attitude towards the participation of the Niger in the Games, he also found opponents. So Steve Redgrave criticized the participation of frankly weak Issaki in the competition. To this, representatives of the IOC stated that he was participating in the competition, not instead of qualified participants, but at an additional quota.

In a comforting race, Issak showed time 8: 39.66 and again took last place, losing to his closest rival 1:20. In the comforting semi-final, Hamadu could not show time faster than 9 minutes, finishing last for 9: 07.99. And in the weakest final F, he again came to the end to the finish line with a time of 8: 53.88. At the finish, the audience greeted him with a standing ovation, and the announcer of the Dorney channel supported the athlete with the words “You can do it”. In the final standings, Hamadu Jibo Issaka took 33rd place.

• Hamadu Jibo Issak - Olympic statistics at Sports-Reference.com