Moe Sbihi aiming for record sixth Olympics Team GB rowing Gold in Tokyo
The postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games due to the Coronavirus pandemic will enable Team GB rower Moe Sbihi much needed preparation time following a year dogged by injury and illness. Sbihi won Gold with the Men’s four at the Rio Olympics in 2016, having previously won Bronze with the eight at the London 2012 Olympics.
In Tokyo this summer, Sbihi and the Team GB Men’s four were aiming for a sixth consecutive Gold medal, a sequence dating all the way back to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. That ambition is now on hold with Sbihi admitting having to overcome pressures often associated with elite sport.
Sbihi has had to overcome “dark days,” in training
“There are days where you feel like you’re not quite sure whether everything is going to plan, or there are dark days or there are days that you have a bit of self- doubt, but on the whole I feel like I’m always getting better, or I’m at least getting, back to the levels to that I was in 2016. There have been patches, not just days, there’s been long patches of quite dark feelings about rowing, and not enjoying the training, but on the whole I’m still enjoying the sport.”
Sbihi, who was talent spotted as a 15 year oldin 2003 at his Holyfield school in Surbiton, could never have envisaged the sporting direction his life would take. In fact the Arsenal fan had other ideas, with basketball being a possible option had circumstances been right.
“I was never going to be a rower until they turned up at my school. I wanted to be the next Thierry Henry, but I was never going to be that. At 6ft 8in, I should have been a basketball player. But this is something that goes back to my passion about talent. When I was picked up by rowing, I had the luxury of having a coach one to one every single day for the first five years I was in that sport.
Sbihi was talent spotted as a 15 year old having never previously rowed
“Imagine if somebody that was good at basketball came along, saw my height, because that’s all that rowing did, they tested my size my strength and they asked a bit about my sporting background and I reached all the criteria they wanted and then they said you can be an Olympic medallist in rowing having never set foot in a rowing boat before.
“So imagine if somebody had turned up at my school and said that guy’s pretty tall, he’s got long levers, ok he doesn’t know how to hold a basketball yet but we can teach that, and then I got coached on a daily basis for five years. I might have been a basketball player now. But I never had that opportunity. Looking back now I’d have loved to have been a basketball player because I think I could have made it in basketball.”
Basketball’s loss would however become rowing’s gain, and Sbihi is quick to pay respect to his fellow rowing Olympic Gold medallists team in Rio, George Nash, Constantine Loloudis and Alex Gregory.
Sbihi is the first Muslim to row for Team GB, and one of the pillars of his faith is fasting during the month of Ramadan. When Ramadan fell in the summer months, training adjustments were made, while Sbihi invited his fellow rowers to try fasting.
“It’s an intriguing education for them. They’re always asking questions and its weird because I recommend it. Unfortunately recommending it for the day isn’t possible because the first day is always the hardest. If you want to do it, do it for a week.”
Hopes of being “the next Thierry Henry,” were dashed for Gunner Sbihi
Being unable to fast whilst training led Sbihi facing a financial offsetting, but one which he was comfortable making.
“I had to donate quite a lot of money to charity because it says in the Quran, for every intentional day you [miss the] fast, you fast [an additional] thirty days or feed sixty needy people. Luckily enough, I had the funds to do it and at the time. It was a very contentious issue and don’t get me wrong it was a decision that was made from my own personal benefit. It might not be the right decision for somebody else and the other thing is, the money paid to charity is maybe seen as a charitable donation but it’s also a fine. That’s the interpretation if you look at it.”
An alumnus of St. Mary’s University in Twickenham, when it came to his dissertation, Sbihi knew which subject he wanted to cover, and which produced some interesting conclusions.
Winners! Sbihi celebrates Gold at Rio in 2016
“I did Sports Science at St. Marys University in Twickenham. It was an obvious choice, obviously sporty myself, but almost instantly I knew what I wanted my dissertation to be on, and that was the effects of fasting (on athletes). I knew on the horizon was 2020 and fasting was going to be a big deal around that with Ramadan, it was just making sure that what I wanted to try and figure out was also something that I wanted to understand about myself.
“I actually found it very hard being a dissertation undergraduate student to get the ethics committee to ok fasting so actually there are the effects of an overnight fast on repeated sprint performance. It was really interesting even on the small sample size that I had whilst it was just only an overnight fast and not a full day fast there were signs which showed that even while fasting, the performance was just as good if not better. It just shows you the strength of the mind and the psychology around the test and the fear of the test maybe pushed the athletes to further and greater heights.”
Sbihi talks positively of his ties to Morocco, recalling many happy holidays spent with his extended family in Tangier describing it as “a beautiful city, rich in culture.”
Growing up in London, Sbihi would often help his dad in his barber’s shop, sweeping up mostly, until the broom handle became too small.
Team GB rowing aiming for more Gold in Tokyo
Sweeping up at the Tokyo Olympics is what he is focussed on now where the greats of British rowing have a long distinguished success rate. Maintaining that winning streak will be challenging accepts Sbihi.
“The pressure that I felt about that week in Rio was partly due to that streak. The people that were in the four for the previous four are legends of this sport. Sir Steve Redgrave, Sir Matt Pinsent, James Cracknell, Tim Foster, then Pete Reid, Andrew Triggs-Hodge, you’re following in these footsteps of really talented people, not just within this country, but within worldwide rowing.”
Too modest to claim it himself, but Sbihi’s name also sits proudly amongst that elite.
