KELZI Ayman

General
MOVE TO THAILAND
He moved to Thailand in 2017 because of the conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic. Originally from Aleppo, in 2011 he travelled to Damascus to train, where he expected to spend one month. But after the Arab Spring protests turned into conflict, he stayed in Damascus for the next five years. He said his training in Damascus was constantly interrupted by the war. "We were swimming in really cold water or swimming without light. Sometimes there's a rock at the bottom of the pool and people think it's a bomb. Training would be cancelled whenever a gunfight broke out near the pool. The roof of the pool could be destroyed for weeks at a time. In the winter, the pool temperature would get down to 12 or 13 degrees celsius. The swimmers would be physically unable to go beyond 2000 metres in a session and when the lights went out, they trained in the dark, with one coach standing at each end to illuminate the wall by the light of a mobile phone." (myswimpro.com, 31 Mar 2021; swimswam.com, 06 Sep 2019)