"The community should keep an eye out for him in the next couple of years. If he stays on track and injury free, we'll see him in the Games very soon," Ramy Saleh said.
Photos courtesy of Hebatallah Ragab.
Last year, Mohamed Abou Auf earned a spot to the Africa Regional, but couldn’t compete because the Egyptian government would not give him permission to leave the country.
The 22-year-old student fell under the strict regulations governing Egyptian students.
“In Egypt, the army regulates the travel of students in their last years of university. They need to have a reason for wanting to travel,” Auf’s coach Ramy Saleh explained. “For any sport it's easy to get travel permission, but since CrossFit has no official federation, it was hard.”
Since Auf is still studying, this is an obstacle he’ll face again this year.
“But hopefully we'll figure out a way around it for Auf, if and when he qualifies for the regional,” Saleh said.
Three weeks into the 2014 season, Auf sits in second overall in Africa (unofficial until validation ends March 19 at 5pm PT). He completed 354 reps of double-unders and power snatches for a 10th-place finish on Week 1, and made it into the 14s on the chest-to-bar pull-up and overhead squat couplet for a total of 193 reps (13th). He jumped from seventh overall to second overall after posting his score of 153 reps on 14.3, which was good enough for a second place event finish in Africa.
“The community should keep an eye out for him in the next couple of years,” Saleh said. “If he stays on track and injury free, we’ll see him in the Games very soon.”
Like many other CrossFit athletes, Auf didn’t find his sport until he found CrossFit. He wasn’t drawn to organized sports, and instead trained on his own and biked everywhere. His time spent working on mostly body-weight training quickly transferred to CrossFit.
Three weeks after starting CrossFit, Saleh was instructing classes on how to do a bar muscle-up.
“And (Auf) stepped up to the bar and asked how I said they should do it, and without even waiting for me to answer, he did a strict bar muscle-up,” Saleh recalled.
From that moment on, Saleh was convinced that he had a great CrossFit athlete in the making.
Over the last year, Auf has left his original home box to start his own affiliate, TD CrossFit.
The “TD” stands for “Train Dirty,” since the affiliate is little more than a collection of basic equipment and an enthusiastic coach.
“I train on a grass surface next to my house, in Gezira Club, where I have my bar, plates, kettlebells and pull-up bar,” Auf said.
He is constantly looking for ways to entertain himself with his training.
“Not training in one specific place keeps me on my toes and prevents boredom,” he explained. “My programming is not fixed because I don't usually train at the same place. Sometimes I train at the track where I can do some body-weight stuff and some running. Other times in the gym where I can lift, do some handstand push-ups and so on.”
Sometimes he gets after it seven days in a row, and other times he trains four times in a week.
“I rest when I feel that my body needs it,” he said.
Where and how he trains often depends on his university schedule, but no matter what, when he goes to train he’s determined to push his boundaries.
“If I'm on the beach I will try to use any odd object to workout with so I can get out my comfort zone,” he said.
His former coach said he believes it’s a good strategy for him.
“He gets bored easily and doesn’t like to stick to any kind of routine for long,” Saleh said.
He’s quick to say, though, that Auf’s restlessness may actually help him in a sport that rewards the generalist.
“His gymnastics skills are super and his lifting numbers are high for his size,” Saleh said.
Whether or not he can cope with a technical event at the regional level is yet to be determined.
If his 2014 performances are anything to go by, Auf will be smiling his way through the next two Open workouts and on to regionals. He’s looking forward to emerging from the Open with a ticket for the regional in one hand and one for a plane in the other.
