17 June 2008

VU student and elite wrestler Ali Abdo is about to journey to Beijing for his third Olympic Games. Ali is in his fourth year of a five-year Masters in Osteopathy. He has been a student at VU through most of his Olympic career and works as a gym instructor in the University's Sport and Fitness Centres.

Ali said: "You can't get any better than representing your country at the highest level, and the opportunity was there to go to the Olympics again."

The 26-year-old keeps a hectic schedule to balance wrestling with his studies. He attends classes every weekday, trains four times a week, and works part-time.

Wrestling is a family affair for the three-time Oceanic wrestling champion. Ali took up the sport at the age of nine under the guidance of his father Abdul, who wrestled when he was younger in his former homeland of Lebanon. Ali started wrestling in Footscray, and now wrestles in Altona North under the Hawthorn Youth Club banner. He has kept the same coach through his 18-year career, Sam Parker.

Ali will leave Australia in July for Japan, where he and the four-member national wrestling team will spend eight days acclimatising for Beijing before he competes on 20 August.

He said: "My goal was just to make it to one Olympics, but because I have been consistent with my training, I have managed to win the pre-qualifying events that led to two other Olympic Games. For Beijing, I feel fitter, wiser, and a lot more experienced."

He came 19th in his class in the Sydney Olympic Games after coming up against a two-time gold medallist. He competed against a silver world medallist in Athens, and was beaten.

Ali acknowledges Australia is an underdog in the sport compared to the powerhouse former eastern bloc countries such as Russia and the Ukraine. "In those countries, wrestling is very well developed and supported, but there is no financial backing for the sport here."

Although Ali did not finish on the podium at the world titles in Azerbaijan last year, he did better than he expected in the elimination-style freestyle wrestling format.

He said: "It's pretty hard to get through because you have to win from the start. You don't know who you are fighting, and you have to make do with what you've got."

The Altona North resident said he was equally as committed to his studies as he was to his sport, and hoped to become a Doctor of Osteopathy next year.

He said: "Who knows whether I'll be able to get to a fourth or even fifth Olympics. But when I look at the long-term, I want to keep the ball rolling with university because I plan to set up my own practice one day."

Ali was recognised at the inaugural Victoria University Sport Awards in 2002 with a University Full Blue Sport Award after he represented Australia at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He also received VU's Male Athlete of the Year award in 2004 after his second Olympic appearance in Athens, where he was Australia's sole wrestling representative.

A photo of Ali is available on request

Media Contact: Andy Gash, Snr. Media Officer,
Marketing & Communications Department, Victoria University
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