It was March 23, in Cairo. Omar Hegazy, a 31-year-old Egyptian, swam under the surface of a pool taking just one breath for 56 meters, and he repeated the performance with fins, this time for 76 meters. Two records which are also firsts since he is one-legged, and therefore has only one driving force, his right leg. His story is that of a fight to come back to the surface, to reclaim his life. It tipped over in 2015, when he was riding his motorbike and a hole in the road ejected him brutally, and sent under the wheels of an oncoming truck.
In the following minutes, passers-by took care of him, took him to the hospital where very quickly, the surgeons told him that his left leg was no longer holding, that it had to be amputated. Omar Hegazy was operated on, and therefore began a long rehabilitation, to relearn everything, to do everything differently, from a wheelchair. Over the months, he went from the wheelchair to crutches, then, several years later, he obtained a prosthesis to walk on two legs again. In the meantime, he lost his fiancée, his job as a banker, and above all fell into a deep depression.
“I totally collapsedhe confides to the Guinness World Records, it was like an existential crisis, I didn’t know if I was capable of accomplishing anything.“
And then, in 2021, he came across a video of another one-legged, Lebanese athlete, Dareen Barbar, who broke the record for the longest seated position leaning against a wall, he thought it was funny, improbable, but a record, it was perhaps the key to getting up. So he invented his own. “I had nothing to losehe said. At that time, I was just swimming because I was angry, it allowed me to vent my rage and my frustration. And in the end, that’s what made me feel free and capable again..”
He therefore set his future records, trained for months, notably crossing the Gulf of Aqaba by swimming, Omar Hegazy became a national figure, speaking on TV and in conferences on self-confidence, overcoming, resilience. “Now, these records must inspire those who doubt, and above all remind them that the incredible is always very close and that it is enough to see a little bigger“, he explains.