If I stayed in Syria, I would be dead now, says the only refugee athlete at EYOF

In Syria he used to throw rocks, in Austria he throws a javelin

Molham Hawana was born in Hama in Syria. Although he is not technically European, he will be competing at EYOF.
When he was five, he and his family had to flee their home country. “The reason for moving was the shooting and the bombs every day. We were scared, we did not want to die so young.”

His family moved to Türkiye. Then he and his dad moved further to Austria. His life had changed. Now he does not live with anybody from his family, his biological father is heading to jail for seven years and he has a new family.
“I have a stepfather, stepmother, and a stepbrother. I am very happy to be there, I feel love from them and they are doing everything for me. I think this is the best thing that could have happened to me,” Molham said about his new family in Austria.

He misses his old family, but he does not complain: “It was difficult three years ago. I want them here; it would be very beautiful to have my own family here but this family I have now is like my real family. They are here for me, I see them every day, my mom cooks every day and I have everything that I want, and I have them, so I am happy. My mom loves me as her own.”

Since he left, he has not seen his biological family. He does not want to travel there, because he still does not have an Austrian passport. He has never seen his youngest brother who is four face to face. “I do not have the Austrian pass, but it will come in next months, but I do not want to risk it to go there. They can say you are going to stay here, and you cannot come back to Austria. I do not want to risk anything.”

The refugee does not have close relatives in Syria anymore. Would he like to go back to his birthland? “I got this question often. In 10-15 years when I am a grown man and when there are no more bombs and the country is in a better situation, I think I would go back for a week or so and then come back to Austria. I want to visit it again. But I just want to stay in Austria, I do not want to go away from my trainers. I love them all and I do not want to forget them. They did so much for me in my life,” he said thankfully.

Thanks to them he has an opportunity to compete at the European youth Olympic festival. “I think if I would be in Syria, I would have been dead because of the bombs. In Turkey, I would not be dead, but I would not be a good sports guy. I would be a normal guy like others, but in Austria, there is I think the best team I could have ever had. My trainers, everyone here, I am just happy,” said Hawana.
He will be competing for the EOC Refugee team, but he has his mind set: “I am going to do it for Austria.”
It was there that he got into the sport.

“It was a really long way for me to come here. Three years ago, I started to do sport, it was running in school and then I got to the track and field. I never stopped and I get better every day,” he described his beginnings. “Somehow, I started doing javelin and this was a special thing for me because it is different than other sports. Javelin is a special thing for me. It was love at the first glance. When I saw it, I got it in my hand, and I just wanted to throw it. Whenever I see a stone, I got to throw it in the water or somewhere.”

The coaches told his father to come and see the training. After that, Molham said he wants to do it. He started to practice three or four times a week and now he competes in seven athletic disciplines including long jump, high jump, 100 hundred meters dash, shot put, and others, but javelin is his favorite.

“It was a little bit funny because I was a little bit fat kid. I had a belly and I hated sports in 2016 and 2017. I saw my stepbrother do sports and I wanted to do what he does. I started to do things like a bench press with very light weights, and it was funny because I saw that I have got some muscles after four or five months and it was beautiful for me,” he said about his beginnings. “My belly was still big, but I could not give up and I wanted to do it again and again,” he said with his typical smile and joyful energy.

At EYOF he will be competing in the boys´ javelin throw on Friday evening. He has always had a strong passion to throw things. “Why do you think I am especially good with a javelin?” he asked and explained. “In Syria where I lived for five years, I used to throw stones every day with my friends. We just threw it for fun because we did not have anything else to do. It was very warm; we could not do anything other. We just threw stones in the air. My technique in javelin is not as good as it should be, but my arm is very very strong.”

His own family does not really know how special it is to compete at EYOF. “I think they know I am competing, I sent them photos and videos but they do not understand it, they do not know what EYOF is and that it is at such a high level.”

Even though Molham is only 15, he is truly mature. He has a piece of advice for athletes that are like himself. “Do not think about things, just do it. Do not make it difficult in your head, just do what you want. Do not think you are too small to do it,” he encourages other sportspeople that have a difficult life. “You can do what you want if you want to. That is why I am here. I just wanted to win in a javelin, I wanted to be big and now I am here. Because I did what I wanted to.”

He is the seventh best in Europe in his category, he will take part in the final of the javelin throw competition.
“I am not so nervous, but I just want it to happen, it is on Friday, so there is still a lot of time. I am going to do this, I have nothing to stop me. We have just a final, I just want to set a new personal best. The second thing is to come in the top five or top four,” he said about his ambitions.

His first impression of Slovakia is that it is a very hot place. “If you train for thirty minutes, you are dying. It is burning here,” he said about warm temperatures that stayed about 30 during the first days of the festival.

He said the conditions are very good, he likes that they can eat whenever they want, and he has a lot of friends here. He likes the area but says the sleeping beds are not so good.  Molham Hawana is friendly and talkative, before the interview he was hanging out with his athletics friends from the Austrian team. He gets along well; it truly feels like it is his home country now: “My home language is Arabic but I can speak German three times better, it is very fluent. Other guys told me that I speak German better than other kids.”