Every morning Palestinian boxer Waseem Abu Sal checks texts from his Cairo-based coach — a Gazan who cannot travel to him in the occupied West Bank — to see his daily Olympics training schedule as he prepares to make history.
The 20-year-old will be the first Palestinian boxer to participate in the Olympics after he bagged a wildcard spot and now dreams of delivering the first-ever medal for the Palestinians when he competes in Paris.
"This has been my dream since I was 10 years old," he said the day after receiving the invitation last week. "Every day I went to sleep and woke up thinking about how I could reach the Olympics."