Champion Bahraini runner

Champion Bahraini runner Mariam Jamal, originally from Ethiopia, has helped put Bahrain’s name on the map in the world of women’s athletics.

How did you develop your passion and talent for running?

The village I come from in Ethiopia is called Arsi and I had to wake up really early to run to school. I had to run about 15 kilometers to school every day, uphill, downhill, on flat lands and through forest areas. I started to run in competitions when I was 15 in high school and I won several school championships. Later on I continued to compete in sports clubs and won junior championships. Arsi is also a place where a lot of famous Ethiopian athletes hail from. There isn’t much investment in sports in Ethiopia, but the nature of life there encourages people to be athletic. Being able to run is a great advantage in Ethiopia.

How did you start running for Bahrain?

I went to Switzerland as an asylum-seeker 2002 to escape discrimination in Ethiopia. Our ethnic group is called the Oromo, which is the majority but different from the government’s ethnic group. Although Ethiopia is poor, our areas are rich and the government has tried to exploit us, so I left for Switzerland where I married my husband Tariq in 2003. While we were there we tried to get Swiss nationality, but we couldn’t. We applied to get citizenship with four other countries, France, Turkey, Canada and Bahrain. We chose Bahrain because we knew some people living in Qatar, also athletes, who told us that Bahrain is a good place to be.

But you spend most of your time in Switzerland. How come?

We spend about six months in Switzerland but we still visit Bahrain at least once a month. The reason we still live in Switzerland is because the weather is more ideal for training and because it has excellent sporting facilities. It’s harder to train in Bahrain because it’s too hot, especially for such a high level of competition. But I am proud to run for Bahrain. Bahrainis have been very supportive,

What about the incident in which a Bahraini MP condemned you in the local Press for wearing so-called ‘indecent’ sportswear because it left your stomach, arms and legs uncovered?

We only came to know about the controversy through the GDN website and I welcome this opportunity to explain my position. I didn’t like to be dressed that way anyway and if it was up to me and my husband, I wouldn’t have. But I was being sponsored by Adidas at the time and they didn’t have more modest clothing for me to wear. I had no choice but to wear their outfits to fulfill my contractual obligations. Now, however, I am sponsored by Nike, which has given me clothing that is more modest - and there won’t be any effect in my athletic performance as a result. But that incident aside, Bahrainis have been very welcoming and the authorities very supportive, especially General Organization for Youth and Sports (Goys) President Shaikh Fawaz bin Mohammed Al Khalifa and everyone else at Goys. I was also very happy to meet His Majesty King Hamad, who was very pleased with my achievements.

What does the future hold for you, both professionally and in your personal life?

Well, I will continue to run for Bahrain in events around the world. My husband and I planed not to have children for the time being, but since the 2008 Olympics in Beijing is over we might think about it.

thank you for your time

My fair lady movie

My fair lady is a musical film from 1964 which could be enjoyable for many, but I didn't enjoy it much. I thought of it that it may be more likely a girl's type movie.

The story line is relatively simple. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins encounters a colleague from India, Colonel Pickering who has come to see him, on a street outside a major theater. He criticizes a flower girl's speech, remarking offhandedly that in six months he could her off as a lady or a shop girl, which requires better English, that it is her accent which keeps her in lower class poverty. The girl comes the next day, to his home where Higgins is entertaining his new guest, and offers to pay for training.

Higgins is a social monster and frightens the girl with his rough talk, but he agrees to take her on, and sends her to his housekeeper to be given a bath and have her clothes burned and replaced which act turns out to precipitate a major battle. At one point, her father, Alfred Doolittle, demands money to overlook the Professor's theft of his daughter, Eliza, meaning the income she had provided him; he uses the money to get married.

The training proves difficult and arduous; Higgins' mother is amused and frightened by the experiment, set off by Pickering's wagering Higgins could not train the girl. But he does; Eliza proves to be bright, touchy, emotional and altogether more interesting than Higgins had expected. She succeeds, masters an upper-class accent; and then in rapid succession, she is presented at a party to social highbrows where her accent is perfect but the content of her speech is Cockney matters, which they take for a fashionable new court slang, and then she upsets the Ascot Race Meeting crying to the horse she has bet on, "Move yer bloomin' arse!", but charms Freddie who becomes her shy suitor. At last the Professor presents her at a royal ball where she charms everyone concerned, avoids any major faux pas, and convinces a bogus Hungarian phonetics she must be royal herself.

So the experiment has succeeded; Higgins has won his bet. Then he discovers, as a distraught Eliza confronts him the next day, that he has done what he had set out to do he has created a person capable of self-assertion in the world, but not in the flawed British Empire's stratified and totalitarian society. She leaves him, to marry Freddy; and he discovers he has fallen in love with her. She recognizes that Freddy is unworthy of her and, despite the lack of promises and guarantees from Higgins, returns to do battle with him for the rest of their lives.

Lebron James

Lebron James is the hottest new talent in the NBA. He was destined for greatness a long time ago and he has delivered in his first season with the Cavaliers. There is a growing school of thought that Lebron James is the one man who has the ability to surpass Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson.

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