The CairoScene Impact List 2022 ft. Bassant Hemida

The CairoScene Impact List 2022 ft. Bassant Hemida  [Athletics Champion] | For Making Egyptian Athletics History

Failure is at times akin to a bright blue badge that certifies one’s innermost deprecating thoughts. In an age of prevalent positively toxic ideologies, it is rare that we witness brave storylines that authentically showcase those who’ve lost battles they didn’t know they were bound to face.

In sprints Egyptian athletics champion Bassant Hemida. Known to most as the 26-year-old whose closet brims with gold medals, Hemida’s personal story is testimony to the power of resilience. Despite the difficulties that preceded it, 2022 was the year when she made history at the 2022 Mediterranean Games in Oran, Algeria as the first Egyptian to win a gold medal in the 100 metres sprint, and became a youth ambassador of the UN-sponsored ‘Shabab Balad’ initiative, her journey quickly turned from linear to tumultuous.

Her path to success had not been so simple. Years before, Hemida honed in on the rigorous preparations required to partake in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics; a life-long dream that soon perished beneath the weighted pain of a physical injury. As everything came to a standstill, Hemida was left to tend to a wound much deeper than broken bones and ripped tendons.

As late nights turned into early mornings, Hemida’s echo chamber of thoughts actualised in a series of notes-app reflections. For years, her encouraging notes to herself were stowed away within the cold embrace of her mobile phone and ultimately forgotten amidst the haze of recovery rituals. Until 2022. Preparing to get back on her feet, the athlete unsheathed her reflections and found comfort in the self-prophetic text she had then inscribed.

She knew the pain wouldn’t last, that failure is an inevitable consequence of great success, and that 2022 would be the year her dreams would come true. And, evidently, it was.