Against All Odds: How Two Syrian Triathletes Are Racing Toward the 2028 Olympics

Ehab Khallouf and Adnan Zaki are on a remarkable journey, striving to qualify for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. With no coaches, aging equipment, and a federation in its infancy, their story is one of resilience and determination.

Adnan Zaki almost saw his Olympic aspirations dashed before they began. Scheduled to start mandatory military service under the Assad regime on December 18, 2024, his competitive career seemed doomed. But ten days before his deadline, the regime fell, offering him a new lease on his athletic dreams.

"I felt as if I had regained a future that had been hanging in the balance," Zaki later reflected.

This close call is emblematic of the Syrian triathlon scene: constantly on the brink of obscurity, yet somehow persevering. Today, Khallouf, 25, and Zaki, 21, are attempting what no one has done before—qualifying for the Olympics while training within Syria. To appreciate their challenge, one must understand the conditions they endure.

From Propaganda Tools to Genuine Opportunity

For over 14 years, Syria's civil war ravaged infrastructure, institutions, and human potential. Sports, too, were affected.

Under Bashar al-Assad, athletic institutions served primarily as propaganda tools. Triathlon, lacking propaganda value, received scant support. There were no dedicated facilities, federation backing, or equipment.

"No equipment was ever provided to us," Khallouf recalls. "We once organized a one-month training camp in the UAE and had to cover every expense ourselves. I also remember a race in Saudi Arabia — we took a bus for three days. I barely slept, and my legs were full of lactic acid when we arrived barely an hour before the start."

International competition posed another challenge. The regime often denied athletes visas for European events, fearing defections. Arab countries presented different hurdles: Syrian passports were frequently rejected. "In Arab countries, as soon as they saw our passport, they rejected us," Khallouf says bluntly. "It's also an issue of racism."

Syria has had only two Olympic triathletes in its history. Omar Tayara competed at the 2008 Beijing Games, and Mohamed Maso raced at the 2021 Tokyo Games. Neither trained in Syria. Tayara was born and raised in Spain; Maso sought refuge in Germany in 2015.

When Assad's government fell in December 2024, a shift occurred—tentative, imperfect, but meaningful.

Meet the Reformer: Dana Shubat

On a mild autumn morning in Damascus, police redirected traffic along the Mazzeh highway, clearing a lane for athletes to run and cycle. Nearby, the pool of the Dunes Boutique hotel served as the starting point for Syria's national triathlon championships.

This scene—police cooperation, ministerial coordination, a public race in the capital—was unthinkable under the old regime. It happened largely due to one woman.

Dana Shubat, known as "Dr. Dana," a former Syrian champion, was elected head of the Syrian Triathlon Federation in July 2025. Within three months, she reformed the federation's structure and regulations. She secured police mobilization for the Damascus highway race and leveraged connections with former Minister of Youth and Sports Muhammad Sameh Hamed and Prince Fahad Bin Jalawi Al Saud, president of the Asian Federation, to provide competition-grade bicycles for Syrian athletes competing in Bahrain in October 2025.

She's also pushing cultural change. Shubat now requires coaches across Syria to present equal numbers of male and female athletes at competitions, signaling a new direction.

"The national federation's executive board has always been made up of older people with outdated ideas," she explains. "They never wanted to hold a race in Damascus because it meant too much work. I wanted to show them that our sport can't grow unless we hold events in the capital and get everyone—the police, the ministries—working with us."

The task ahead remains enormous. It will likely take years before a new generation of Syrian triathletes can compete at the highest international level. But Shubat is laying the foundation, one bureaucratic battle at a time.

Ehab Khallouf: The Self-Made Champion

Triathlon is a multi-sport endurance race combining swimming, cycling, and running in sequence—typically in that order, with transitions between each discipline counting toward total race time.

Ehab Khallouf didn't grow up dreaming of triathlons. At 17, he followed a friend to a municipal pool in Aleppo—and couldn't swim. His family had little interest in sports. Basketball was his game.

"I immediately loved the discipline," he recalls. "A year later, I won my first triathlon race."

That trajectory—from non-swimmer to national champion in roughly one year—hints at the rare natural talent beneath the surface. In 2025, Khallouf won the World Triathlon Development Regional Cup in Aqaba, Jordan, a competition designed to support athletes from countries where triathlon is still growing. He then competed at the Islamic Solidarity Games in Riyadh in November 2025, continuing to accumulate international experience.

But ask him about his national title, and he practically waves it off. "I feel proud, but the national championship is easy when you're the strongest athlete in the race," he says with a smile. "Honestly, my goal isn't a national title. I'm aiming for the Asian championship and the world championship."

His obstacles are significant and largely systemic. Khallouf has had no professional coach since 2019, when he last trained with professionals in Thailand. The federation cannot afford to provide one, and neither can he. He occasionally joins cycling, swimming, or running groups in Aleppo—but as he admits, "that's not the ideal way to train." His local triathlon community consists mostly of athletes in their 50s. "It's not exactly my level," he jokes.

He trains on roads where drivers routinely travel the wrong way, through a haze of dust and car exhaust. "When I went for a race in Kazakhstan, I finally got to feel what clean air was like," says Zaki, who shares similar environmental conditions.

For swimming, Khallouf spent winters with access to just one hour of pool time per day—in freezing water. The new government has since provided access to a heated pool in Aleppo. "But now it's way too warm," he laughs.

Adnan Zaki: Six Titles, One Suspension, Zero Quit

If Khallouf is the self-made champion, Adnan Zaki is the prodigy shaped by circumstance—sporting talent forged in one of the world's most turbulent cities.

Zaki grew up in Damascus with a father who was an accomplished swimmer and a mother who played table tennis. Sport was embedded in family life from birth. "My parents were waking me up every day to swim. I didn't like it, but now I know it was worth it," he says.

By age 15, he had won his first Syrian national championship. By 21, he had accumulated six national titles, four Arab Championship gold medals, and a West Asian Championship title in 2023—a résumé that makes him one of the most decorated young triathletes in the region.

The war shadowed every step. During Eid, his father was shot in the street—surviving, but leaving a mark that Zaki says he will never forget. The family fled to his grandfather's house as tanks rolled through their neighborhood.

In March 2024, while out on a training ride, Zaki was arrested at an army checkpoint. Armed men loaded him—and, awkwardly, his bicycle—into a car. "They didn't know how to fit the bike in the car," he recalls with a mocking laugh. "So, ironically, I ended up helping them load it." He was released after three hours of questioning. Weeks later, he received orders to report for mandatory military service in December.

Then, ten days before that deadline, the regime collapsed.

The Doping Suspension

Zaki's story took another difficult turn in 2025: he tested positive for DMHA—dimethylhexylamine, a synthetic stimulant banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that enhances performance and reduces fatigue perception. He received an 18-month suspension running from November 2025 to November 2026, barring him from all official competition, including the 2025 national championships he had previously dominated.

WADA's strict liability standard holds athletes responsible for every substance in their body, regardless of how it got there or whether ingestion was intentional.

Zaki maintains he never knowingly took the stimulant. "I was only taking supplements, maybe some bad ones. You never really know where they come from. There's also the possibility that someone set me up," he says. Multiple appeals were filed; all were rejected. WADA upheld the suspension because Zaki "was unable to demonstrate that he had not taken the substance."

The context matters here. Steroids and performance-enhancing substances have become normalized in Syrian gym culture—a ripple effect, some argue, of the Assad regime's role in producing and trafficking Captagon, an illicit amphetamine-type stimulant. The supplement market is largely unregulated. For athletes without professional nutritional guidance, the risk of unknowing contamination is genuinely elevated.

The suspension cost Zaki his entire 2025 competitive season and eliminated a critical window for accumulating Olympic qualification points. The day after his suspension lifts in November 2026, he intends to compete.

The Infrastructure Gap: Bikes from 2015, Pools Shared with Beginners

To understand what Khallouf and Zaki are training with, consider the Syrian Triathlon Federation's equipment inventory: approximately 10 bicycles, all dating to 2015—more than a decade old. These are the bikes of a federation just learning how to function.

The federation recently provided Khallouf with a pair of shoes costing a few hundred dollars for an international race. It was, by Syrian standards, a notable gesture.

At Al-Fayhaa Stadium in northern Damascus, rust stains streak the ceiling of the pool facility. On a typical training morning, Khallouf and Zaki have one hour to swim before the pool switches to women-only hours—sharing lanes, in the meantime, with men in their 50s practicing with flotation belts. Outside on the track, Syrian Army recruits do laps alongside the two Olympians-in-waiting.

"You see who our training partners are today?" Zaki says, with irony that doesn't quite conceal the frustration underneath.

Zaki at least has the relative luxury of a coach—based in Turkey, guiding training remotely. Khallouf has no one.

Visa Barriers and the Discrimination Tax

Even when Syrian athletes have the fitness and the will to compete internationally, administrative walls block the path.

Under Assad, the federation had access to roughly three domestic races per year. None of those races awarded the Olympic qualification points that determine eligibility for the Games. International competition was the only route to points—and international competition was systematically blocked.

"We missed many races outside Syria because of visa problems," Zaki explains. "On top of that, the regime wouldn't grant visas for Europe because they were scared we'd flee the country and seek asylum."

The post-Assad era has improved this somewhat. Damascus Airport has reopened, enabling direct international travel where previously athletes had to route through Beirut. The new government's international posture is more open than its predecessor's.

But structural discrimination persists. Syrian passports still trigger suspicion and rejection across the Arab world. Every race Khallouf and Zaki enter now carries added strategic weight—they must choose carefully, perform consistently, and navigate bureaucratic obstacles that athletes from more stable nations never encounter.

The Road to Los Angeles 2028

Olympic qualification for triathlon works through accumulated performance points at sanctioned international events—a process that typically requires years of consistent competition across multiple continents. For most Olympic triathletes, the qualification cycle begins well in advance of the Games.

For Zaki, that window effectively begins in November 2026—less than two years before the 2028 Los Angeles Games. He will need to race relentlessly to reach his goal.

Khallouf is further along in the process. Having competed at the Islamic Solidarity Games and with no active suspension, he is accumulating points now. "This is my moment to qualify for the Olympics," he says simply.

Both athletes train at Al-Fayhaa Stadium, where a faded portrait of Man Asaad—Syria's most recent Olympic medalist, who won bronze in weightlifting at the 2021 Tokyo Games—hangs at the exit. It's a reminder that the ceiling exists. That Syrians have stood on Olympic podiums before.

The question is whether the system will support Khallouf and Zaki long enough to find out what they're truly capable of.

Key Takeaways

• Syria's triathlon history is nearly blank. Only two Syrians have ever competed in Olympic triathlon—neither trained inside Syria. Khallouf and Zaki are attempting to change that.
• Institutional change is real but nascent. Dana Shubat's federation reforms represent genuine progress: gender parity mandates, government partnerships, public races in Damascus. But equipment, coaching, and funding gaps remain severe.
• Geopolitical instability creates unequal competition landscapes. Visa discrimination, passport rejection, and limited international access mean Syrian athletes face barriers that have nothing to do with athletic ability.
• Zaki's doping suspension compresses his already narrow qualification window. Whether or not his account of unintentional ingestion is accurate, the suspension illustrates how athletes from under-resourced sports ecosystems face disproportionate risk from unregulated supplement markets.
• The 2028 LA Games are a stretch goal—but not an impossible one. Both athletes have demonstrated elite-level performance at regional and developmental competitions. With consistent international access and improved support, qualification is within reach.

What Needs to Change

For Khallouf and Zaki's Olympic dreams to become reality—and for the next generation of Syrian triathletes to build on their foundation—several things need to happen:

• International sports organizations should develop visa facilitation and equipment-grant programs for athletes from post-conflict nations.
• The Syrian Triathlon Federation needs sustainable funding to hire coaches, replace aging equipment, and build a youth pipeline.
• Supplement regulation in Syria requires urgent attention, both to protect athletes and to ensure fair competitive outcomes.

The athletes themselves can't solve any of these problems alone. They can only train harder, race smarter, and trust that the world is watching.

Follow the Journey

Ehab Khallouf and Adnan Zaki are two of the most compelling stories in world triathlon right now—not despite their circumstances, but because of how they've refused to be defined by them. Khallouf training alone in Aleppo. Zaki counting down the months until his suspension lifts. Both chasing a finish line in Los Angeles that, for Syrian athletes, has never been crossed.

Follow their qualification journey through 2026 and 2027. The races that matter most are still ahead.

If their story resonates with your own experience of training through adversity—limited resources, difficult conditions, systems that weren't built with you in mind—we'd love to hear from you. Share your story in the comments below.

And if you're looking to gear up for your own triathlon journey, explore our triathlon suit or find the right competition-grade bicycle—because every athlete deserves the right tools, regardless of where they start.

Reporting by Aubin Eymard, freelance journalist covering politics and conflict in the Middle East, originally published in New Lines Magazine (May 2026). This article draws on

#SyrianTriathletes #OlympicDreams

Source: https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/two-syrian-triathletes-train-for-the-olympics-in-a-country-rebuilding-after-war/

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