Ali Thameem
Fathmath Dheema Ali has won the South Asia Regional Olympic Qualification in Kathmandu, Nepal, making history as the very first Maldivian athlete to qualify for an Olympics.
The singles table tennis qualifiers started three days ago and allowed two athletes (one female, one male) from the contending seven nations to book their tickets to the Paris Olympics 2024. Dheema rose to the challenge and grabbed the spot reserved for the women’s singles champion.
Dheema’s qualification was confirmed after she defeated the Sri Lankan champion Bimandee Bandara by four sets to one in the qualification’s final match.
The Sri Lankan champion gave a stronger challenge to Dheema back in the group stage, dragging the game into the seventh and final set, which the Maldivian star managed to win. Dheema made it to the knockout stages undefeated in the round-robin group stage: she had also defeated Hoor Fawad, the Pakistani champion by winning four sets straight (the qualification games were played in a best-of-seven format; whoever wins four sets first, claims victory).
The teenager was one of four Maldivian table tennis athletes who flew to Nepal to compete in the singles qualifiers; the other three participants were Mishka, Munsif and Akhyar.
Maldivian athletes have gone to the Olympics on two occasions in the past; Badminton star Mohamed Ajufan played in the London Olympics in 2012, and Nabaha Abdhul Razzaq, the female badminton champion, went to the Tokyo Olympics 2020 which took place in 2021. On both occasions, the door of qualification had been closed on the Maldivian athletes, but the contenders performed well enough in the qualifying stage to have been eligible to apply for and achieve a universality slot in the Olympics; a sort of wild card that the International Olympic Committee’s tripartite commission provides to under-represented nations.
Dheema making it to the Olympics adds to her burgeoning career’s long list of achievements. As the table tennis wonder-child of Maldives, she has been making history with a racket and a ball since she was 10. Her historic entrance to the biggest stage in the world of sports might seem like a fairy-tale ending, but hopefully, it is just the beginning.
