A Discus' Throw Away: Abdul Buhari

Such are the demands of professional sport that most athletes out there are full-time sportsmen and women. Focusing on anything else other than training and competing could compromise an athlete’s effectiveness, but that hasn’t stopped one athlete from juggling a job as a banker with being British discus champion.

30-year-old Abdul Buhari, who is of Nigerian descent, works for Credit Suisse two days a week and he is also one of Britain’s leading discus throwers but only took up discus throwing after injury forced him to reassess his participation in the 400metres. Since 2002 Buhari has been competing and building up experience in discus throwing and in 2008 he represented Great Britain for the first time. Numerous injuries throughout his career have seen him miss out on two Commonwealth Games and him nicknamed ‘the come-back kid’, but he came back stronger in 2011 and won both the English and British Championships and set a personal best of 65.44metres to let his rivals know that he was back.

The fasting concerns that have affected other British Muslim athletes in these Olympics have also affected Buhari who has chosen not to fast to give him the best chance of a medal. Buhari is in good shape for 2012 and even with the results of the Men's Discus Throw announced, we wish him well for the future.