M ohammed Ahmed made history for Canada at the 2020 Summer Olympics, bringing home a silver medal in the 5,000-metre, and, like me, he’s a part of a Somali-Canadian community that doesn’t tend to get much coverage during Black History Month. Hoping to do something about that, I reached out to him for an interview and had the pleasure of speaking with him on New Year’s Day via Zoom from Portland, where he’s currently training. Even through the screen, his personality shone. He was prone to making big gestures to emphasize his points, his smile was a constant and he spoke with an obvious passion for sport, which has been a vital presence in his life from his boyhood playing soccer in Eastleigh, Nairobi to the Olympic podium and beyond. Over the course of our two-hour conversation (edited here for length and clarity), we spoke about his childhood, career, faith and identity — and his mission to inspire future generations to take up running, and Somali kids, in particular, to pursue their passions.
KADIJA OSMAN: What do you remember about your life in Somalia?
MOHAMMED AHMED: I actually grew up in Kenya. [I was] born in Somalia, and then soon after, during the Civil War, my family left and settled in Kenya. So to 10 years old, I was in Nairobi. Right before I turned 11 years old, I moved to Canada in 2001.
I mean, you know, Africa’s Africa, right? I feel like the life that I had in Kenya compared to the life that I probably would have had if I was in Somalia would be the same to a certain extent. Obviously, Nairobi is a bigger city [than Mogadishu], but I grew up in Eastleigh, [a neighbourhood in Nairobi that is] essentially a Somali town. It was actually just kind of funny: I didn’t even need to learn Swahili. Somalis ran the whole friggin’ thing. [Laughs.] So yeah, I don’t know, just growing up in that very Somali childhood early on is pretty cool.
How Mohammed Ahmed made Olympic history and inspired generations to come
Source: Healthy Lifestyle
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