AUC’s Women Athletes Overcome the Odds to Win Gold

By: Omar El Nebei
@omarelnebei

For AUC’s best and finest women athletes, the hike to the top of their game is riddled with stories of stereotyping, sexism and in some cases bullying.

Is it really worth all the sweat and tears?

Student athletes like Hania El Hammamy, Amal El Henawy, Farah Shawkat, Laila Sameh and many others say a resounding yes.

And they’ve got the medals to prove it.

In early April, Integrated Marketing Communication senior Hania El Hammamy won the prestigious 2022 Allam British Open Squash Championship.

So, how do AUC athletes such as El Hammamy maintain academic excellence mixed in with athletic training and competition?

El Hammamy, ranked third worldwide, said that she has faced a challenge for the better part of the past 10 years to strike a balance between academic responsibilities and a vigorous training regimen.

“There is always one [sacrificed] in order to have the other peaking. I, personally, try as much as I can to focus on my academics in a smart way to give myself more room for practice which takes almost half of my day, six days a week,” the squash champion said.

El Hammamy credits her upbringing for providing her the organizational tools to pull it all off.

“I was raised to become an organized individual due to my tight schedule. With the help of my parents I learned how to manage my priorities and know when I need to put more effort in something than the other,” she told The Caravan.

Currently, AUC athletes participate in three types of competition – national tournaments that include all the universities in Egypt, private sector tournaments that include all private universities, which AUC sometimes hosts, and regional competitions.

The latter include such competitions as the All Africa University Games in Kenya, June 6-10, 2022, which will host more than 4,000 student athletes from across the continent.

Laila Sameh, a junior student intending to major in Graphic Design, will be among a moderately sized AUC contingent heading to Kenya this summer.

Sameh spent most of her childhood years practicing at the SAID club but as she got older she moved to the Gezira Sporting Club, which she says offered higher quality coaches, and more intense training, in addition to a good fitness coach that knew how to treat the body during the off season.

Her change of clubs paid off: before rounding out her teens she had already placed well in local and global competitions.

“Throughout my time playing squash I have won many tournaments, placing 6th place in the Arab Regional Junior Open, 2nd place in the French Junior Open, 3rd place in the Ardic Junior Open, and finally I ranked 9th in the girls under 19.”

But Sameh switched sports due to the Covid-19 pandemic and took up track and field instead.

On April 16, Sameh and her teammates on the AUC track and field team came in first place in the track and field sectors competition. She says this was her last competition as a track and field athlete before going back to her first love, squash.

Like her athletic colleagues at AUC, maintaining a sports training regimen as well as excelling academically requires a delicate balance, but some things may fall between the cracks.

“The preparation for any major tournament is focused on two major aspects – the physical and the mental. They are both equivalently important and can’t be neglected,” she said.

She kicks off her mornings with a 45-minute morning run, followed by 20 minutes of complete meditation and self-reflection about issues that take top priority like family, friendships, her studies, and so on.

To prevent injuries, while training, Sameh gets body massages once a week.

“Eating healthy and making it a lifestyle is a way to success that requires severe determination,” she added.

She does admit, however, that she struggles to keep track of time; she ends up missing important events like birthdays and family gatherings.

But what does irk her is that women’s sports do not receive the same attention as men’s sports

“We lack branding and promotion compared to the men’s teams; they’re better marketed,” she said.

Soccer fans, for example, usually differentiate between futsal, a five-a-side team sport, and football, with 11 players on each team. And the prevailing misconception is that men dominate this sport, too.

Don’t tell that to Amal El Henawy.

As a member of the AUC women’s futsal team, Marketing senior El Henawy has had her fair share of victories. Since joining the team, the futsal team has won the sectors competition twice and placed fourth in the nationals tournament before the corona pandemic.

“A huge [issue] that I faced while playing this sport was gender discrimination because people think that Futsal and Football are dominated by men. This has affected the way I play,” Henawy said.

Henawy added that the common misperception is that women can’t play football, as well as men.

Incidentally, AUC’s women’s futsal team won first place in the sectors tournament hosted by the university on April 9, 2022.

Members of AUC’s women’s volleyball team have faced similar gender bias, and often in ways which may not immediately seem obvious.

Farah Shawkat is a Marketing senior and the captain of the AUC volleyball team. She also plays for the Shams club, and the National team.

“I have won more than 30 medals since I joined the national team back in 2016, including first place,” Shawkat told The Caravan.
She says she finds gender bias rearing its ugly head during the games.

“The audience who attend our matches do not hype us up as much as they do to the men’s teams,” she said.

“We want people to start supporting women athletes as they do to men,” she said, “because it is a critical factor in supporting any team to win competitions.”

But do AUC’s women athletes have any time away from academics and sports?

“There’s also the bottom line where I’ve had enough of both and that’s when my body is telling me I need a break,” says El Hammamy.

She admitted that time for having a social life is minimal, but her achievements have been rewarding enough, that all the hard work pays off. This has made her realize that life is all about priorities.

“I started to accept that it’s okay to have a small circle of friends and these are the ones that will actually understand and support my efforts and achievements more than anything,” she said.

“I go on a holiday or go out with friends – these definitely help me keep my mind off things that are stressing me and pressuring me.”