Niger’s first ever Olympic rower, Hamadou Djibo Issaka has started training for Rio 2016 and he speaks to journalist Rupert Guinness about his hopes and dreams.
”YOU’RE an absolute inspiration,” yelled the American woman from the banks of the Thames as we rowed towards Hammersmith Bridge.
Tempting as it was to thank her, it was not me she was yelling at but the man sitting behind me in the bow seat of a double scull – Hamadou Djibo Issaka of Niger, the cult figure of the 2012 Olympic Games.
Issaka, who rowed at the Olympic regatta courtesy of a wildcard for developing nations, finished stone, motherless last in each of the races he contested in the men’s single scull. But it was the manner in which he lost, his determination to finish despite some obvious technical deficiencies, that earned him first the affection, then the respect, of the crowd at Eton Dorney.
He was soon given the nickname ”Hamadou the Hippo”, a nod to swimmer Eric ”the Eel” Moussambani Malonga from Equatorial Guinea who brought crowds to their feet at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney as he struggled to finish the 100 metres freestyle. He has also been likened to Great Britain’s Eddie ”The Eagle” Edwards, who soared to fame because of his lack of skill in the ski jump of the 1988 winter Olympics.
Rupert Guinness puts in the hard slog with Niger rower Hamadou Djibo Issaka in an attempt to prove that not all sports journalists are paunchy, lazy coodabeens. Photo: Brendan Esposito
Apart from the British crews that won a swag of medals, no rower at Dorney Lake received greater cheers from the 26,000 crowd than Issaka, a 35-year-old father and former swimmer who took up rowing seriously only three months ago and came to London with just 500 kilometres on the water under his belt to race against the top rowers, who notch about 5000 kilometres in training a year. His entry to the sport began last November when he showed his potential as a novice by finishing his races in the African zone qualification regatta at Alexandria in Egypt. That led to the Niger Olympic Committee requesting a wildcard to the Olympics under a development initiative of rowing’s world body, FISA, and then to Issaka being urged to give it a go.
Three months after training under Tunisia’s head coach Faysal Soula, Issaka became the first from his country to row at the Games.
The day after the Olympic rowing regatta finished, Issaka was back on the water – on the Thames starting at the London Rowing Club in Putney – with one eye on the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
It was Issaka’s first outing on the Thames and a long way from the Niger river, which passes through his home in the Niger capital, Niamey, and where the biggest danger is territorial hippopotamuses and crocodiles.
Hamadou is interviewed by journalists at Eton
As we rowed down the famous old river, Issaka told of how he had loved the roar of the 26,0000 crowd at Dorney Lake, inside the confines of Eton College. ”I was very, very happy that they encouraged me to finish the race as fast as I could,” Issaka says. ”I was very happy that they encouraged me because when someone encourages you, neither him or you alone is enough to finish the race.”
No matter where he placed in the single scull, Issaka is an Olympian and will be for life. He is what most of us never will be.
Issaka also has his own sense of achievement. He will forever cherish that in his first of four races he finished last and one minute, 35.9 seconds behind, as he more or less did in his next three races. His main objective, though, had been to honour the wildcard he received by finishing all his races. ”I feel good. I finished all four of my races. It was a good reference as I leave. I put everything into my four races. I am so happy about that. I finished well, and in good health,” he says.
Just finishing seems an easy enough goal but there were the dangers of crashing into the lane markers or tipping out of his flimsy craft. Issaka smiles and says: ”I finished all four of them well and in good health. I was afraid. It was my first time to compete – especially in London – in wet conditions, and I respected the lanes well. So it went well.”
As we continue rowing, it is clear that strength is on the Hippo’s side.
Issaka knows his technique needs work. But he is confident he can improve now that he has four years to do it, rather than the fast-tracked three-month program with the Tunisian squad that included a three-week training camp at Hazelwinkel in Belgium where he rubbed shoulders with the crack New Zealand squad, whose training regime and systems opened his eyes to how the top rowing nations go about their business.
Issaka comes from a country where heavily subsidised training programs don’t exist.
One of four children whose deceased father was a chauffeur in the public service, his life in Niger consists of 15-hour working days on various jobs – from working his family’s vegetable farm to attending a children’s swimming pool. ”We don’t have just one job. We do anything that pays money. I don’t rest from six o’clock or seven o’clock on,” Issaka says.
He says he is determined to fit his rowing into his life. ”It is from rowing that I have just raced in the championships of the 2012 Olympics in London. It’s for that, that I want to continue it,” he says.
But rowing won’t be the only change to his life. He has become a national star that he says his son Abdoukarime, 6, and daughter Ziada, 4, have followed from Niamey. ”They saw me on the television, in the newspapers, everywhere on the internet and on Facebook. There are a lot of people who are so happy for me,” he says. ”My life has changed.”
