One of Egypt's Olympic heroes wasn't sure he'd win, writes Abeer Anwar , 22, who took a bronze medal in taekwondo in the Athens Olympics, still cannot believe he did it. "It was fantastic," Salah, 22, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "I couldn't believe it. I put in a lot of effort and I played a lot. This medal is special because it came after a long struggle." The struggle began when six-year-old Salah became attracted to action films. Since then he started fighting -- real and play -- with his friends and neighbours. Later, he joined the taekwondo team at Raml Club in Alexandria. In 1990, Salah shifted to Alexandria's Olympic Club and his first nationals were also that year. He placed third. "Nobody knew me at the time," Salah said. It was not until 2000 that he was chosen to join Egypt's national team after excelling in an international taekwondo championship in Cairo, finishing second. The year 2000 was Bayoumi's start at the international level. He won the bronze medal in the Taekwondo World Cup in France and took first place in Germany and The Netherlands in international championships. He also won the Arab and African title the same year. Although Talaat Mabrouk, one of the taekwondo stars at the time, became Salah's godfather, Salah attributes much of his success to his coach, Amr Khairi, considered one of the world's best taekwondo coaches. He won medals in the Seoul and Barcelona Olympics when taekwondo was only an exhibition sport and its medals were not counted. But when it came to coaching, Khairi's prodigy won the real thing. "Dr Khairi gave me all his time and experience," Salah said. "He adopted me. He thought I was good potential. "Dr Khairi was more confident than I was about winning a medal," Salah recounts. "He kept pushing me and kept on telling me that I would be able to do it. He never lost hope although at times I did. "He was always there, behind me, whispering in my ear all the time, 'You can do it. You'll win. Do your best.'" To prepare for the Olympics, Salah trained in South Korea, where the sport was invented. He trained six hours a day -- two hours on physical fitness alone, followed by two hours of taekwondo and two more hours of actual fighting. The Egyptian Taekwondo Federation paid for everything, providing Salah full-board accommodation at the Olympic Centre in Maadi. Salah lost in the quarter-finals to an opponent from Chinese Taipei by just one point. The Asian went on to take the gold. Following Salah's loss he entered a qualifying second round where he played four matches. "My draw was very strange. It was one of the most difficult." In the first match he played against Brazil's World Cup title holder. His second match was against Sydney's gold medallist. In the third, he met a Chinese player who ranked first in the Olympics qualification round and fourth was against Spain's champion. Having met so many top taekwondo players, Salah's third place finish is truly remarkable. After returning from Athens, Salah and the four other Olympic medallists met President Hosni Mubarak. "I felt I was dreaming. I couldn't believe I was shaking hands with the president." But there he was, coming out of virtual obscurity to be received by the president. Salah has also become a regular feature on streets and buildings as his picture and that of the other Olympians has been plastered on several main streets. Salah's bronze is the only medal Egypt has ever won in an Olympics in taekwondo, a sport the country excels in on the Arab and African levels but had until Athens made little headway internationally. "I trained very well for Athens," Salah said. "And I feel I was repaid."
