Rwanda Karate team is preparing to compete in the World Karate Federation (WKF) Championships due in Bremen, Germany, next week. This week Times Sport reporter James Karuhanga spoke to Tamer Abdel-Raouf, a highly rated Egyptian Karate coach, currently, training the Rwanda Karate national team.

Tamer, who in 2008 emerged world number two at the 19th WKF Championships after losing a grueling match to Rafael Aghayev, a top world competitor (four times World, and eight times European champion), believes Rwanda’s Karate has a long way to go but nothing is impossible.

Excerpts:

TNT: When did you start professional coaching?

Tamer: After I retired from competitive Karate this year. In Egypt, you retire because there are many things you have to fix – you have to improve your skills with courses, with scientific and academic things, learn the anatomy of the human body, and others because when coaching, you are bound to face a lot of situations.

TNT: Why did you think about coming to Rwanda?

Tamer: Our federation asked me. With four other colleagues, since 2007, we are the first generation to win gold medals in world championships and make a name for Egypt.

Due to good cooperation and relations between Egyptian and Rwandan karate federation, I was called and told that I have to go and help Rwandan karate team.

TNT: What do you make of the Rwandan team, so far?

Tamer: First, I have an observation about the country. I didn’t expect Rwanda to be very clean and pleasant. I was so surprised it is better than Europe. In Egypt, we don’t listen a lot about Rwanda. I had brought my drinking water and food.

TNT: Over the weekends, you had the chance to travel upcountry and visit the clubs …

Tamer: I visited one in the west, the north and the east. I will draw a plan on how Karate here can be improved. Not many medals have been won at continental level. Only Solange [Gashagaza Ingabire] won bronze in Senegal.

TNT: Are you hard on them during training?

Tamer: Yes. I am looking for perfection, but they can’t get to that in three weeks. In Egypt, we have won many medals but we start preparing for a championship one year before it begins.

Three weeks is not enough but I am doing my best, and they are also doing their best, because it is very new [to them] – training three hours every day.

When I arrived, I told Mr. Theo Uwayo of the Rwanda Karate Federation that I wanted six hours but he told me that may not be possible here. Things are not easy for the players.

TNT: You had to adjust?

Tamer: He said one long session was fine. I started the first week with four hours and they did it. I had to change their strategy of thinking because it is not easy. I told them that nothing comes easy.

I told them that ‘you have to make a name for this country’. You have to make history for this country. And, you have to win. I compared them with the best on the international level.

TNT: Why?

Tamer: The others, Egyptians, France and others are human too. They have the two arms and legs, one mind. Why are they better? We have to consider this, have confidence and be serious. All Africans are strong. This should be looked into seriously!

TNT: How do you rate them now?

Tamer: I want them to work harder. I can’t tell them this but for me, I am happy, even if three weeks are not enough. The other day, some of them vomited and I told them, ‘this is it. This is what I want! You are getting there.’ I told them that in Egypt we work extremely hard. I want results. Be wise, work hard.

TNT: Who is doing well?

Tamer: For me, Emery Ntungane is the second boy after Vanily Ngarambe. But they need to work harder, because they don’t have experience… I don’t blame them. Making a champion takes time and patience yet I pressed and pressed them because they are going to Germany.

Three weeks will not make anyone a world champion but maybe, just maybe… If one wins two fights in one world championship, it will be history. All in all, physically, they are ready. Coach Ruslan Adamov has done a great job.

TNT: Can a miracle happen in Bremen?

Tamer: In 2008, in my first world championship, I got silver. I fought a star with vast experience. He won with difficulty, by 3:2. When I was a white belt in 2001, he was a European champion already.

I was the first in the world to hit him with a Mawashi-geri chudan (middle-level roundhouse kick). They should not care about opponents’ history.