Sudanese Olympic swimmer Ziyad Saleem of Cal aims to make his mark at Paris Games

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — As a boy in Milwaukee, Ziyad Saleem would walk around the house pretending to swim the backstroke: His arm would circle backward along his right ear and over his shoulder, then his other arm would do the same on the left side.

Some days he could also propel both arms forward as if he were doing a butterfly stroke. His father then saw real potential, even out of the water.

“I would always ask him, ‘Hey, what are you doing?’” Saleem recalled. “It was about range of motion or trying to master the way he pulls underwater. I knew he was into it.”

The swimming bug had hit him hard and Saleem had started dreaming big.

Dad didn’t know it would lead to something that would mean so much to the family: The University of California swimmer is heading to the Paris Olympics to compete for Sudan, his parents’ home country and a place most of his relatives have now fled because of war and a massive humanitarian crisis.

“It’s hard to describe the feeling,” Mohamed Saleem said of his son, who represents Sudan.

Few people think of swimming and Sudan in the same breath, but it is athletes like Saleem who are helping to put the sport on the map in this North African country with a long coastline on the Red Sea.

When Saleem won a medal five years ago in Tunisia for one of his country’s great successes at an international competition, he received royal treatment afterwards.

So imagine the triumph last May when Saleem won Sudan’s first gold medal in swimming at the African Championships by winning the 200-meter backstroke. Saleem savored his moment on the top step of the podium as the national anthem played, then he repeated the feat by winning the 100-meter backstroke.

“It’s super cool to be one of the first to medal and really be at the top of the sport in Sudan,” Saleem said. “For me, it’s really about taking what I learned in the U.S. and all the high-level training and swimming that I can do here, and bringing it back to Sudan. I’m trying to help the coaches at these world championships, give them some of the tips that I learned here in the U.S., and I think that’s just the most important thing, to take what I learned in the U.S. to Sudan and hopefully these kids can learn and become better swimmers.”

Far from the turmoil in Sudan, Saleem is enjoying his new life in the diversity of the San Francisco Bay Area, alongside American Olympic medalist Ryan Murphy in the Cal pool, day after day, hour after hour, series after series.

Every now and then, Saleem can surprise Murphy and beat him in their backstroke warm-ups. And it’s always fun to give the gold medalist a run for his money, even if it’s just in practice and not under the pressure of competition.

“Sometimes when he takes it easy in the warm-up, he waits for the new set and really destroys me,” Saleem said with a smile.

It’s hard for Saleem to believe he’s in the water alongside a former world record holder like Murphy. This isn’t how it was supposed to go for Saleem. He committed to Iowa, but the Hawkeyes’ program was canceled due to COVID-19, suddenly leaving his college path uncertain.

“So I found myself with nothing, with no place to go,” he recalls.

But when Saleem started losing seconds in every event as a senior in high school, Cal noticed. He signed up without even visiting anyone on the team or even telling anyone.

The program’s reputation and the coaching staff spoke volumes to him. Not to mention the chance to share a pool with Murphy and so many other international greats.

“I knew it would be a place where I would really enjoy having world-class athletes around, someone like Murph,” Saleem said. “I learn a lot from him in and out of the water, what to do, his advice. He’s a great person to help you out. When I first got here, it was really surreal to see him in the water. But now that I’ve developed a relationship with him, it hasn’t faded, but I still admire him a lot. That’s one of the main reasons I chose to come to Cal, just to have a world record holder to train with every day.”

Murphy also enjoys swimming with Saleem.

“Ziyad is awesome, he’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever trained with at Cal,” Murphy said. “He’s a happy, hard-working person.”

Saleem was born in Milwaukee but holds dual citizenship, allowing him to represent his parents’ country at the Olympics. Mohamed Saleem relishes every opportunity to watch his son compete for Sudan.

“We have a decent community here in Milwaukee. They’re very proud of him, so multiply that by 50,000 by being the father,” Mohamed Saleem said. “When you say you don’t think about Sudan when it comes to swimming, they didn’t think about it either, so it was a big surprise when he went out there for the first time and won medals for the country. … It brought a lot of attention to swimming and its potential.”

Saleem will be competing in the Olympics for the first time, having gained experience on the big stage at several world championships.

He earned Olympic spots in the 100 and 200 backstroke — his best event — thanks to each country’s free entry, exempting him from the qualifying minimums.

“I’m just trying to go faster and reach the semi-finals, that’s the goal,” he said ahead of the Paris Games.

Saleem has been to Sudan several times and has met some of his Sudanese teammates just by attending meet-ups with them. They stay in touch despite training in different parts of the world, but it is the Americans at Cal that he knows best.

Most of his family left Sudan.

“With the war, they all emigrated to Egypt. They were all in Sudan last June and now they have all gone to Egypt with what is happening there (in Sudan),” he said. “There are a few in the Middle East. There are maybe one or two still in Sudan, but all the others have left.”

His father immigrated to the United States in the 1990s and his mother in the early 2000s.

They can’t wait to see him compete in Paris alongside Murphy and all the other stars.

Could Saleem have taught Murphy a thing or two during all their training and hours spent together in the pool?

“I don’t know if it’s a lot,” Saleem said, “but I try to push my (backstroke) as much as I can and be a good person in and out of the water with him.”

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/paris-olympics-2024