Dubai: A group of athletes from Dubai, known as the Omni Athletes, has completed seven marathons in seven continents to raise $39,504 (Dh144,979) of the $40,000 needed to treat a one-year-old Syrian refugee child suffering from cancer.
Baby Hajar was diagnosed with Wilms’ tumour in both kidneys.
Dani Afiouni, Mazen Mroueih, Mustafa Mroueih and Nizar Fakhoury had aimed to run the seven marathons in seven continents in seven days, but took 11 days to complete the challenge, due to bad weather that delayed their flight to Antarctica. However, the group still broke the previous record that stood at 21 days.
The Omni Athletes started their challenge in Melbourne, Australia on February 8 and ended it in King George Island, Antarctica on February 18.
Mustafa and his brother Mazen also set a new record as the fastest brothers to complete seven marathons on seven continents.
“The challenge was to get to the island actually, since we had three failed attempts to get there and were turned back due to bad weather conditions not conducive for visual landing on the King George Island,” said 34-year-old Mustafa.
The team of four started off strong in Melbourne, ran in the humidity of Abu Dhabi, powered through the muddy course of Paris, ran up and down the hills of Tunisia, through the snow of News York, onto the concrete beach roads of Chile and finally the slippery path in Antarctica with the sole objective of raising money to save baby Hajar’s life.
“The pledge is still open for online donations so we will definitely keep doing this,” Mustafa said. “This was the third adventure for the team. We previously supported a Sharjah based nine-year-old girl and a Jordan-based two-year-old, both suffering from cancer.”
The Omni Athletes will aim to take the initiative and endure such adventures every year to make a difference in the lives of underprivileged families who desperately need support to fight diseases, he added.
He emphasised that their initiatives help the needy without any discrimination.
“We are planning to climb Mount Elbrus in July, the highest peak in Europe to add to the previous two peaks we already scaled and to raise awareness and funds for another cancer patient usually screened by the King Hussain Cancer Centre,” he said.
The group will continue to climb high mountains and run marathons every year in order to support one or two cases. Mroueih clarified that money received is never used to cover expenses for trips and all donations go to the patient in need.
As for baby Hajar’s condition at the moment, he said she is receiving necessary treatment and responding successfully.
— Maria Botros is a trainee at Gulf News.
