Abdi Hasan

BIO (written 2020)

Abdi was born in a small town in Somalia and lived in Ethiopia before arriving in the UK at the age of 7. Abdi has five siblings, 4 sisters and 1 brother and lives with his family in Bristol.

Abdi couldn’t speak any English when he arrived and understandably School was very hard. The local Community centre helped him improve his English so he was able to return to St. Barnabas Primary school and learn with his friends. Abdi started at Cotham School in year 7 and is now in the sixth form studying A levels in Maths, Biology and Chemistry and hoping to go to university.

Abdi ran his first race at the Bristol school track and field championships in 2014 and was subsequently selected to compete in the Avon County championships, this would be the first time everyone was able to see just what a talent he was.

He led from the start at his usual pace, ‘flat out’, he slowed down and the pack caught up, people watching thought that was race over, but Abdi had other ideas, he picked up the pace and ran away from the pack to win.

After the race, coach Pat Gallagher, encouraged Abdi to join a club and invited him to join her training group. English was a bit of a problem, but one of the girls in Pat’s training group knew Abdi from school and helped convince him to join. It took a year before he joined the club.

Abdi is still learning how to race and compete, nevertheless his talent shines through. He has represented Avon at Every English schools championships track and cross country since his first selection in 2015. Abdi has never trained very hard and has only just increased to four times a week. Abdi has huge potential within the sport if he wishes to pursue an athletics career.